Chasing Shadows
by AmandaFriend
Summary: What were the months like between the broken engagement and the death of Pelant? Here be a little angst, some drama and a reason why Angela might accuse Booth of seeking that one last fling before settling down.
1. Chapter 1

**Chasing Shadows**

**Author's note:** What were the months like between the broken engagement and the death of Pelant? Here be a little angst, some drama and a reason why Angela might accuse Booth of seeking that one last fling before settling down.

For past readers of my stories, you might be pleased to know that the majority of this story is already written. Unbelievable, right? I still have to re-work parts of it, but consider this a December present for those of you who aren't part of some Secret Santa exchange.

**Disclaimer: **While I might have started out with more, I'm down to 206 bones. That's it. Hart Hanson, Kathy Reichs, and Fox have claim on the TV show and the novels. I have claim on this story and my paltry 206 bones. Neither is making me rich.

oOoOoOoOoOo oOoOoOoOoOo oOoOoOoOoOo oOoOoOoOoOo oOoOoOoOoOo

"_Booth, are you happy?"_

_His answer stunned him. Stunned them both from the expression on her face. _

_She, however, seemed to recover first. "I don't understand why you would say that."_

_Everything beyond the awards and the banquet had been planned that night to reassure him. Reassure them. The stop at the dining room, drinks, the baby being cared for overnight, the room card key on the table, the clothes already upstairs in their suite. She'd made the plans to show that she really was fine with not getting married. But he could only sit across from her, silent, shocked as much by her question as by his answer._

"_You should be happy, Booth." He'd seen her like this before, uncertain, wavering. But there was nothing uncertain in her next words. "You deserve to be happy."_

_And what about him? Speechless beyond. . . beyond what? She sat waiting on the opposite side of the table, sitting as they'd sat across from one another hundreds of times over the years, he certain he wanted marriage and family and she certain she wanted him and a shared life and somehow they had compromised to be a couple with a child and a house and while it was unconventional, it worked for them. Mostly._

_Then the universe had shifted and she had been the one proposing marriage and he was the one rejecting it and nothing was as it should be. _

"_Bones," he began, but he could only close his eyes, convinced this was some kind of cosmic nightmare. When he opened them again, she was still across from him, still sitting there expectant and hurt as if he had just slapped her. He'd become so paranoid about electronic snooping by one Christopher Pelant that the woman at the next table just staring at the screen of her iPhone must certainly have a direct line to that bastard. _

"_We don't need to get married," he finally said, repeating the words that had taken them onto this road. "What we have is enough."_

"_Are you sure, Booth?"_

_Somehow he had argued her down to take turns between their apartments, to move in together, to buy a house—to maintain the trappings of being a committed couple until they could be more—and now?_

"_Yeah," he said as he tried to push down the rage at Pelant, "I am."_

_If his answer before had stunned her, this was the knock-out blow. She stood and slid the card key closer to him. "I'm going to go pick up Christine," she said. Her wide eyes seemed dark in the subdued lighting of the restaurant. "I'll be at the house."_

_He made no move for the card, no move to stand. The amber liquid in his glass caught the reflection of lights overhead and twinkled mockingly. _

_The woman who was so unerringly honest with him, brutally sometimes, was just as direct with him now. _

"_You should be with someone who will make you happy."_


	2. Complications

**Chasing Shadows: **_**Complications**_

_**Author's note: I wrote the story and had 80-90% of it written, then decided to revise it a little, then a lot because I had a better idea. For those of you keeping up with season 9, think of this as the awkwardness of the summer months between the U-turn on the engagement and the season premiere. I won't go beyond that, so there won't be some kind of cataclysmic implosion here that takes us far, far afield from the Booth and Brennan we know. **_

_**I write this note because of what is about to happen. **_

oOoOoOoOoOo

The plate crashed to the floor and sent pieces skittering across the room and his partner's sigh told him everything in one long, slow breath.

"I'll get the broom," he offered, drying his hands on the towel and shuffling past the shards. He'd seen the look on her face and knew his offer did little to soothe her.

"Booth, that was one of the plates. . . ."

He didn't need to hear the rest of the sentence. It was one of _her_ plates, one of the plates she had brought from her place when they had finally merged their households under one roof. _Their_ roof. The number of plates, for some reason he wasn't quite sure of, was dwindling at a regular clip. There was the one plate that died at the end of the dinner party they had had with Angela and Hodgins when he had tried to kiss her in the kitchen and backed her into the counter. And the plate that had sacrificed itself in the Flyers win when he and Parker had become a bit too enthusiastic for their own good at a great power save. And the plate that he'd dropped late one night when sleep wrestled with thoughts of Pelant and the awkwardness with Bones and the mad desire to simply tell her the truth.

If he had paid more attention in Mrs. Lindauer's English class, he might have picked up the significance of the dish slipping this time from his hands and crashing to the kitchen floor. Bones had simply passed him the dish and with his mind on something else entirely—on what else he could do to track down Pelant—he'd let it slip.

A lot of things seemed to be slipping between the two of them lately.

He gave little thought to symbolism, but just as he returned to the kitchen with broom and dustpan in hand, he realized she had never before complained about the loss of the plates. Her plates and his silverware had become theirs, but now she seemed to be slipping backwards, marking territory with their belongings: _ours_ was slowing retreating toward _yours_ and _mine_ once again. His phone began chirping.

And gave him a long look.

Handing off the broom, he fished his phone from his pocket. "Booth."

He watched as Brennan swept at the shards on the floor, her face a neutral mask, but he could tell she was annoyed. Problem was, he was sure it wasn't just because she got to clean up his mess.

The dispatcher outlined the latest crime scene.

"Text the address to my cell." He grabbed at the trashcan with one hand and tried to offer his help as a peace gesture. Bones looked on expectantly, but he shook his head.

"It's one for Cam, fleshy and messy," he said as he ended the call.

The tilt of her head and the V between her eyebrows told him enough.

"Look, Bones. . . ," he began, but the baby monitor erupted with a cry and they merely exchanged glances. He leaned in and tried to kiss her, but all he got was air as she turned sharply toward the stairs.

This time it was his turn to sigh. "I guess I'll see you later," he said to the now-empty kitchen.

oOo

How did you fix something that seemed as broken as that plate? He'd given into Christopher Pelant's blackmail, had ended the engagement practically before it began. Bones, who braved the change, said nothing about marriage or the broken engagement, gave little indication beyond a neutral expression and a spate of formal politeness with him in the days that followed to suggest she was affected. But twice when he called her for a lunch date during that first week, he imagined he could hear the faint echo of her voice bouncing off the walls of Limbo.

She was anything but fine.

Hurt just radiated off her. Dogged by his own guilt, his early attempts at "I love you" always seemed to have an unspoken tail, ". . . but not enough to marry you."

With almost nothing he could say and certainly nothing he could do short of finding the bastard, he'd spent more time at the office and pouring over reports looking for Pelant, looking for a way out of this mess.

Ending Pelant was the only way short of a GPS unit to find their way back to where they once were.

He pulled the SUV into traffic and checked his own GPS, not that he trusted it entirely as he reached for one of the books of maps he now kept in the glove box. Pelant had succeeded in making him hyperaware of all electronic devices, from the baby monitor to the FBI super computers, to the point where he sometimes just shut down everything as if to shut out Pelant's ability to see into his life.

Maps might combat Pelant's sick sense of humor, but did little for the sightseers on a summer night so he nudged his siren before speeding past them and into the night toward the crime scene.

He needed a break, a gesture—something to prove to his brainiac scientist partner that he did love her enough to marry her even if he couldn't right now. The universe had reversed direction on them, grabbed them both up and put them on separate paths and he needed something to change all that. The last three cases had gone to Cam and Brennan had split her time in the lab assisting and pulling together research for some damned paper on old bones found off England's shores. While technology had made the distances across the ocean much smaller, it hadn't seemed to do much for them. She'd be up at night advising the Brits that their skeleton had osteoconjunction functiondooey or some such thing and she'd be chatting for hours with her English counterpart.

It wasn't as if he was jealous. . . well, not of the 70-year-old scientist in England, or the 700-year-old skeleton. No. It was just that she had found something to talk about with someone across the ocean and he envied that connection with her.

oOo

He tried to push aside the night's fiasco to concentrate on the crime scene just coming into view. The glow of lights pinpointed the site and he pulled his car next to the Jeffersonian van. The pathologist was pulling at a case and he hurried to help her with the gear.

"We really need to get these murders on a more regular schedule, Booth," she said as way of greeting. He grabbed the handle of the case and merely grunted.

"Took you away from a big game, Seeley?"

He blew out his breath and shook his head, uncertain where to begin. "Tell me some good news, Cam. Tell me this guy just died of natural causes."

She flashed him a sympathetic look. "Sorry. Preliminary examination by the cop on duty says we've got gun shot wounds." But then she brightened. "I do have some good news. The Jeffersonian is getting an award. Specifically, Dr. Brennan is getting an award. Cocktail napkins and champagne with rich donors and boring speeches all on a summer's night."

"It's a big deal?"

"One of the biggest."

"And Bones' award?"

"Mammoth."

He suppressed a smile, but a glance at Cam told him she could read right through him.

"I'm in."

"Board members have been calling since the award was announced, Seeley." She was still taking him in, studying him. "Everyone in the lab has a piece of the award. Even Mr. Nigel-Murray. Anyone who touched the research."

That gave him pause. Brennan had told him a while ago about the research, had mentioned it in passing recently. While he barely understood the point of it all, he had understood that it had been a continuation of something the young intern had started. Bones was building off his research as a means to honor the young man and had pulled in the others.

"It was suggested that the cash prize go toward a scholarship in his name." Cam studied him. "His parents may be flying in."

"Sounds like a big deal," he said. "Does Bones know about it?"

Cam stopped. "Seeley," she said, the pleading in her voice evident, "I shouldn't be the one telling you about this."

He rounded on her, but he couldn't quite form the words.

Cam sighed. "She probably just forgot."

He held her eyes, knew she was lying to ease the pain. But he couldn't be angry with Bones. He'd made the U-turn, he'd kept one big damn secret from her. There was only one thing to do.

"Bones will be there with guest." He turned toward the crime site. "Me."

oOo

He shoved aside his anger as Cam detailed the preliminary findings on the corpse. Male. African American. Late twenties. Almost 6 feet. One eighty. Blunt force trauma to the back of the head. Dark areas around the neck, wrists and ankles could be bruising.

These details he duly noted on an index card.

Cam gave him several looks as she processed the body, but he tried to maintain a neutral façade despite the fact he felt somewhat betrayed.

He questioned the young couple that had chanced upon the body, talked to the first responding officer and wrote down the names of other officers who had secured the location. This information he made note of on his cards and shuffled a fresh one to the top. On this one he began to list information about the site itself.

"I knew you'd be very thorough."

He looked up from his writing to see a tall blonde staring back at him.

"Special Agent Macy Stephani," she said, extending a hand toward him. "I'm impressed. You're very thorough."

Her eyes caught the light from the spotlights the techs had put up around the scene. Even in the glare, she was stunning. And the look she gave him made him pause. It had been a while since a strange women had looked at him like that.

His hand met hers almost as a reflex. "Special Agent Seeley Booth. Did the bureau send you out, because this," and he gestured around him, "is my case."

She smiled and did not flinch at his tone. "I'm your 9 o'clock with Hacker." She held his eyes with her own. "I just wanted to see you in action. Hacker said that you were the man for me. I just needed to see for myself." Flashing him another smile, she turned and disappeared into the night.

He stood for a moment staring after her.

Cam came up to his side and it was several more moments before he realized she was there.

"Someone you know, Seeley?"

He swallowed hard and shook his head. "She's my 9 o'clock with Hacker."


	3. Note of Truth

**Chasing Shadows: **_**Notes of Truth**_

**A/N:** We'll try this again. I still own no Bones and apparently, no brains.

oOo

He slid into bed well past 4, his side of the bed decidedly cool. Christine would probably give them an hour of two of sleep and he debated whether he would risk curling up next to his partner.

Instead he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.

"What time is it?" Bones turned toward him and he longed for the time when she would reach for him when he came to bed late fresh from a crime scene.

The red lines of digital clock formed 4:23. "It's still early. Four and change, Bones."

He wondered if he should chance a conversation. But silence clung to the shadows and there were far too many of those in their lives. "Look, Bones, Cam mentioned that you were being crowned Queen of the Lab or something like that."

"You don't have to go, Booth." Her voice had the huskiness of sleep. "It's one of my science _things_."

The tone should have been a warning. But his own tiredness was catching up with him and he took her hand and brought it to his lips. "It was a pretty nice thing you did there, Bones. For Vincent. I'd like to be there."

They'd both reached for each other the night that Vincent had died and they had held on cobbling together their little family in spite of all the stops and starts of their relationship over the years. _In spite of her fear of committing fully to a shared life with him._ Her proposal had erased those fears. And now he wanted to drive away her doubts about them.

"I didn't know if you would want to go."

In the shorthand of Temperance Brennan, it might be the closest he'd come to an apology, but he'd take it.

"Hey, it means we can get dressed up. Me in a tux, you in something beautiful and we can dance and show off our Tony and Roxy moves."

The Jersey accent elicited a small quirk in her voice. 

"But Roxy isn't getting the award, Booth."

"Because she's not as smart as you." He liked being able to tease her. "Or as nice."

"That doesn't make any sense, Booth."

"You're more beautiful than Roxy. Hotter, too."

"You're not being rational, Booth."

He had her. With only the soft glow of the lights from the street, he couldn't really see her face, but the tone had given her away.

"My love for you is just not rational, Bones."

oOo

Truth be told, he had half expected the death knell to sound for them when he had broken off the engagement. Never pushing, always teasing, from early in their relationship he had made it clear he wanted them to be married. This was Temperance Brennan and he had learned through trial and fire that pushing her into something didn't work out well for either of them. And when she'd proposed—_beef jerky and all_—he'd been over the moon, far too happy to even think about the case or Pelant.

Then calling it off? God, he had to be the biggest heel on the face of the planet. Even Caroline had been a bit put off, asking him if he had just wanted Dr. Brennan to propose to prove that she was serious about them.

He'd had to look past his own misery compounded with anger and paranoia before he could see Bones', but he saw it. Every day he could see it. Every single moment.

And it was just too damned hard to take.

oOo

He woke to what sounded like the radio. A song, vaguely familiar. A voice even more familiar.

It took several minutes before his brain erased the fog of sleep and he could match the voice with the singer.

Bones.

The song was accompanied by a second voice, a soft babbling.

Little Bones.

If he could imagine a most perfect morning, it might be this. Brennan gently rocking Christine, her voice softly soothing her. He unfolded himself from bed and softly padded to the baby's room.

Somehow he could never quite get enough of watching the two of them together. Brennan's voice soothing their child, her arms cradling her as she gently rocked, an open book in her hands.

He was just as smitten as their little girl.

He couldn't bear to make the connection, but the great care she gave to the bones in her lab was no less than the care she lavished on their child. Even when she hadn't been fully sold on them as a couple, she had thrown herself into their relationship and had fought to keep them together. _It's how she is_, he thought. Standing in the doorway, he just watched, his heart full to bursting.

He caught her eye as her voice gradually becoming lighter, softer as she saw him.

How could he help but smile? He'd been in and out of Rebecca's life when Parker was a baby and he'd not been privy to half the intimate moments like these.

She gave him that look which could melt away all rational thought. "I was just reading to Christine," she explained. "We didn't mean to wake you."

He shook it off and smiled. "I've got to see the boss at nine. Then there's the case." He'd already outlined what they knew of the victim last night and didn't want to bring murder into their morning. "That was one of the prettiest readings I've heard." Christine's eyes darted between the book and him and she finally decided. With both hands she patted the open book. "Christine seems to think so, too."

"I was singing to Christine," Brennan admitted. "Research suggests that singing the words might imbed them deeper into the child's cortex."

"You were singing to her because she likes it." A smile at Christine produced a co-conspirator who clapped and smiled back. "I like it, too."

He earned a look for that. He only leaned against the door. "I'm only presenting the facts, Bones. Just the facts. Scientist like you should know what that means."

Christine erupted with a burst of words and sounds crooned to her own tune and Booth could only join in, "Sing another story, Mommy."

oOo

He made it to Hacker's office with five minutes to spare feeling much lighter than he had in some time. While it had been years since Hacker had dated Brennan, there remained an undercurrent of regret in his conversations with the man whenever his partner's name came up. The man had said all the right words when Booth had informed him about their relationship and the pregnancy, had even sent them a gift basket of some sort to welcome in the baby, but Booth rather suspected that his boss still wished he'd won the hand—or any other parts—of one Temperance Brennan.

It was another reason for feeling so good.

Another was that he'd beaten Hacker's assistant to the office, the man scurrying behind his desk somewhat red-faced and flustered, his arms full of files just seconds after Booth's arrival.

Usually he got a mere nod from the man, but this morning, that was different, too. He sized him up over the stack of files and greeted him. "The assistant director is still in a meeting upstairs. You're welcome to wait in your office, Agent Booth, and I could call you when he's ready for you."

Before he could accept the offer, Hacker swept into the office, the blonde agent he'd met last night at his heels.

"I hope I haven't been keeping you, Agent Booth." Hacker paused at his office door, opening it and slightly bowing to Agent Stephani. "After you."

Booth saw the glimmer in Hacker's eyes, the same glimmer his boss had had for Brennan. It was unmistakable.

And a little uncomfortable.

He followed the other agent into the office and took a seat in front of Hacker's desk.

"I know you just caught that murder case last night and so I'll let Agent Stephani here fill you in on the reason for this meeting. Agent."

Hacker's smile was his smarmiest attempt at charm, but Stephani ignored it.

"We have a solid suspect in the truck stop serial killer case." She looked at him with the same look as last night and he felt something in him respond. "This is a career maker."

oOo

The case had languished for almost 20 years despite the bureau's best efforts. Best agents. Top-of-the-line resources.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Oh, they'd been able to fill out reports and fill up file cabinets with information on the case, but they had come no closer to a suspect, a _solid_ suspect than a list a mile long of possible possibilities.

"And they want our help in determining if this suspect is viable?" Sweets let out a long whistle. "What can we possibly give them?"

Booth turned toward the young man. He'd met Sweets outside his office that morning for help with a profile on last night's investigation and he filled in the young man on the latest development in Stephani's case.

"Where's the old enthusiasm? Let's win one for the victim?"

"Three agents died," Sweets said. "I'd say there's a lot of collateral damage in investigating serial killers."

Now he understood the hesitation as he powered through to his desk. "This isn't Pelant. They weren't targeted by the killer."

"But they might as well have been."

"Just hold it, Sweets. Back up." Booth sat down in his office chair and leaned forward. "They just want some input. We're consultants."

Sweets stood by the door, fidgeting. "The Bureau has had profilers re-examine the case every year since forever," he countered, "and no one has come up with anything new."

Booth leaned back in his own chair and took in Sweets' words. Hacker had stressed the importance of Dr. Brennan's involvement, not Sweets', but somehow involving the psychologist made sense.

"Agent Stephani is going to meet the team this afternoon," Booth said. "You're part of the team."

"You know Dr. Brennan will want this case. A bunch of old bones rattling around in some old storage locker? A chance to solve one of the greatest mysteries of all time?" Sweets paused in his pacing. "You don't need me on this one."

The truck stop murderer had crisscrossed the country and left little doubt that someone had it in for truck stop Lolitas. Almost a dozen murders before the killings stopped and the killer vanished.

Then nothing. Nada. Zilch.

'The trail's cold, Sweets." Booth fingered the dice in his pocket. "The last solid piece of evidence surfaced more than 8 years ago. I need to know why the guy stopped."

"It's the mystery of the century, Agent Booth. Eleven women picked up at a truck stop and left almost a hundred miles away and little evidence as to who did this to them."

"They were killed, Sweets. There's nothing romantic about that."

"But don't you see?" Sweets was warming to his argument. "They talk of career makers by solving this. But you've solved hundreds of cases and that's a career." He seemed pained. "It's a career killer, Agent Booth."

"That it is, Dr. Sweets. Or so it seems."

He looked up at the new speaker, Hacker.

"Many an agent has run into a brick wall on this case, Dr. Sweets." Hacker's demeanor was a far cry from the one Booth had witnessed in his office just an hour earlier. The well-polished political beast had given way to cold, hard truth. "A few have become lost in the bottle because they could not crack this one. At least one committed suicide because he couldn't bring about that closure."

The facts had done their duty. Sweets seemed lost in studying something on his desk.

"Could you excuse us, Dr. Sweets?" Hacker's tone softened. "I need to talk to Agent Booth."

They both watched as Sweets left and Hacker bent to close the door behind him.

"I'm not sure how to phrase this, Agent Booth." Hacker seemed uncomfortable in his own skin and Booth had an unpleasant flashback to few years ago when the deputy director had asked him about Bones.

Booth waited, not sure what direction the man intended.

"This case, the truck stop murders?" Hacker hesitated. "Temperance has a very objective eye, doesn't she?"

Booth nodded. "Very."

"She'll look at this case from the very beginning, won't she? She'll dig into everything, look at all the extant evidence, right?"

Again, Booth agreed.

"Good." Hacker still seemed uncomfortable.

"What is it that you want to tell me, Boss?"

Hacker studied his hand before looking up. "If Temperance cannot find anything on this case, anything new, then I am going to pull it and put it back in storage."

Booth thought he knew what was at the bottom of the man's concern. "You don't have to be worried about the other case, Boss. Or Pelant. We're still looking for him. I'm still on it."

"That's not the point," Hacker said. "Well, it is the point, but there's a bigger issue here. I hate to admit it, but this case is a black hole. We've put in thousands of man hours and lost three good men to this case. We've consulted with dozens of agencies on this one and frankly, some of the finest men and women have worked this case and got nowhere. Stephani has a theory on the case, a viable one some might think, but it's a cold case. Ice cold and I'm not sure her theory is enough to warm it up."

Booth waited. He'd skimmed the case files—filed by different agents over the years—when some higher up wanted to see if the Jeffersonian could crack the wildly disparate clues left by the killer. Just as quickly as the case files crossed his desk, they disappeared as the higher up had a change of heart.

"Agents become obsessed by this case. Once they catch it, they want to make sense out of it and I'm not sure. . . ," Hacker said haltingly. "Too many of them have become casualties of the killer without ever meeting him. It sometimes happens in serial killer cases."

Booth knew that as well. "Bones will do her own examination of the evidence. If there's something that was missed over the years, she'll be able to find it."

Hacker hesitated as if he wanted to say something more, opened his mouth, then stopped. He looked past Booth to the picture frames on the file case behind him. "Quite a lovely family you have there."

Booth knew the photos well. His picture with Parker and the latest, him holding the newest Booth with Brennan at his side. Angela had snapped the photo one morning before their trek to the daycare and had presented it to him. _Family_. _His family._

Hacker looked almost regretful for a moment, then the look was gone. "Let me know what Temperance comes up with, Agent Booth."

And with that, he was gone.


	4. Puddle jumping

**Jumping puddles**

oOo

"Do we have an ID?"

In the lab, the key was _gun and run_.

In the best of times, he disliked the lab with all its squintiness and sterility. In the worst of times, like now, he didn't like being under the scrutiny of his friends as if he were one of the many experiments there.

In and out quickly was key.

He had followed Cam into Angela's office where the artist was fiddling with her drawing pad. While Brennan's mood had been good that morning, he wasn't sure if that bit of news had percolated up to Angela. He stood with Cam for a moment, waiting, as Angela continued to sketch on the pad.

"ID? Angela?"

One look from Angela told the story.

He'd seen the same look on Bones' face, the faraway look of longing for a bed or any other horizontal plane and three hours of uninterrupted sleep.

"I'm sorry. Late night with Michael Vincent." She moved in what seemed like a slow motion, halting pattern that he was all-too familiar with.

"The little guy sick?" he asked.

Angela shook her head, her eyes closed, a yawn commandeering her mouth for a moment. "Oh, God, what I would give for a night of sleep."

Cam gave him that look, the one that reminded him he'd warned her long ago that she was in the job of herding cats.

"Wild Adventuring," Angela said.

"I'm not going to touch. . . ," he started.

"It's the new program at the museum," Cam offered. "Post-draining of the accounts of the chief contributor to the museum. No money, need income program."

Angela's explanation was a bit less jaded. "They take a group of kids and let them play archaeologist or paleontologist or . . . ," a yawn swallowed up the last word, "and they spend the night in the museum."

"No Teddy Roosevelt?"

That comment earned a look from Angela.

"No," Booth said, shaking his head, feeling he was on firm ground, "I'll pass. Christine can spend some quality time at home."

"You don't want to spend overnight in the museum," Cam countered.

"Christine can dig up her own back yard looking for treasures."

Cam couldn't let it go. "Do you really want to do an archaeological dig at your house?" She tried to suppress a smile. "Seized property? Government auction? Who knows what the criminal who once owned your home left behind?"

He'd lost that round. "ID?"

"I fed the facial reconstruction into the computer along with fingerprints and voila!"

They waited. Her computer, too, seemed to be sleep-deprived. "I'm bringing an Agent Stephani in this afternoon to meet the team," he said as they waited. "She wants to work a case with us."

He'd practiced the right tone in the car ride over, but both Angela and Cam turned toward him, ignoring the Maryland driver's license that appeared on screen.

"Seeley, is the Bureau going to replace you?"

Chalking this up to another of the theories behind his U-turn on the engagement, he hurried to erase Cam's speculation.

"No," he jumped in. "There's a new theory behind a serial murder case and she wants to run it past our team and see if we can find anything new. That's all."

Angela held his eyes for a second longer than he felt comfortable with.

"It's okay, really."

"Right."

"Really." He was especially good at convincing people to do the right thing, but he was failing miserably at convincing them of other things.

"Look, Assistant Director Hacker wants us to take a look at the victims. See if they really are the work of one guy. It's an old serial killer case and the agent has a theory she wants to test out and, well, this is a lab."

Cam said nothing, just gave him the eye and Angela yawned and nodded toward the screen. "Darius Mull." She yawned again.

"Just send it to my phone, Ange," he said as he quickly turned to make his escape.

But he wasn't fast enough. Cam's heels beat a strong rhythm behind him and he paused well away from Angela's door.

"Cam, we're fine. The team's fine."

She was giving him the eye again and he felt like an altar boy under the watchful eyes of one of the nuns.

"Look, everything's fine."

"Is it?"

He wasn't courting trouble, but he felt it curled up in his gut just waiting to pounce.

"Look, Cam, what do you want me to say?"

"I'd like you to tell me that there's nothing wrong. I know that something is going on, Seeley." Cam knew him a long time and hiding out from her had proven almost as difficult as living with Bones under the circumstances.

"Nothing's wrong."

This was Ducking 101—avoid the truth, deflect when possible. But Cam had her own tightrop to walk. "The board wants to maintain the association with the FBI, Seeley, that is certain."

"So?"

"So," Cam crossed her arms in front of her, "the board wants the partnership to hold. They want to keep Brennan. Their worry is with the FBI."

"No worries there, Cam."

"You promise?"

He nodded and smiled. "Promise."

"And this Agent Stephani is not going to be trouble?" Cam could go toe-to-toe with him. "She's not being groomed to deal with Brennan and take your place?"

"No. No trouble beyond the demands of the case."

They locked eyes, the old game of chicken, but this time it was Cam who swerved and he relaxed as she did. "All right. I believe you," she said before turning and sketching a wave.

He watched as she made the march down the length of the lab to Autopsy before he could admit to himself that he didn't quite believe himself.

oOo

There was just something about Hodgins, he thought. Or maybe it was the T-shirt.

Maybe. The T-shirt under his open lab coat probably put him far and away in the lead as the most supportive mate in the world, thought Booth. How could it not?

_Caffeine is not for wimps._

Not only was he wearing the shirt to support his under-caffeinated wife, but he was in full solidarity with her as well, fueling his brain cells with pure, unadulterated coffee as he scoured the contents of the file folders Agent Stefani had supplied for their reading pleasure.

Booth considered his own cup of coffee and wondered how much goodwill it might generate in Squintville if he had his own T-shirt made and wore it to support his still-very-unmarried partner?

He caught Bones' eyes for a moment and he had more than an inkling of what she was thinking. Despite everything, this was her kind of puzzle, her kind of case.

_Look who's under-caffeinated,_ he thought, as his own brain seemed content to drift away from the meeting.

"Well?"

Stefani had handled the information load well; she pared down each case file to the essentials: age, sex, race, what remains remained and what additional evidence was stored with the bones.

Seven perfect little puzzles like the bones in the drawers that lined the storage area downstairs. Limbo. Souls in translucent plastic purgatory until the gods and goddesses of the Jeffersonian released them from anonymity and gave them names and faces and sent them on their way to heaven or to hell.

"Agent Booth?"

He'd drifted again, like he'd been drifting on and off all day, in and out of his own limbo.

Nodding, he sipped at his coffee wishing he could just pour it over his head and re-charge his lagging brain cells.

"Agent Booth," she repeated, "you haven't really answered my question."

"It's not my question to answer."

He nodded toward Cam, but they all looked to Bones.

Her eyes supplied the answer—the same eyes that she would insist did not provide a gateway to one's thoughts. Myth or not, he could see her answer even as Cam made it official.

"I think we can provide your investigation with some answers," Cam said.

Stefani gave a slight nod, then hesitated.

He felt it coming. He knew from the moment Hacker had summoned him that there would be a more twists to the case.

"There is an additional set of remains I'd like you to examine." Stefani looked about ready to jump out of her skin. "I think they might be connected to this killer, but no one ever tied them in before. If they are connected, it's possible that they'll lead us to the killer."

That stopped them. Hodgins had already started looking through the folders, probably prioritizing them based on what seemed most intriguing. Angela had only glanced through them while Cam had been more thorough, looking at them from both her pathologist's and administrator's eyes.

But the heavy lifting was really going to be Bones' and even Cam was leaving this call to her.

"Why weren't they connected to the earlier sets of remains?"

Human motives she might ignore, but why someone left a piece of the puzzle off to the side was a why Bones needed to understand.

"Only part of the paperwork was computerized, the various agencies never really communicated well, I don't know. They ignored what the evidence was telling them or someone got sloppy. Really," asked Stefani, "does it matter? We have the people and the technology to find the answers and set things right."

Simple math he could do. Seven plus one meant too many days of them leading separate lives.

"How did you connect them?

No one had left the conference table. It was a tale they were all-too-familiar with but a mystery they all liked solving if only to give some peace to the families.

"Old-fashioned research. And a lot of legwork." Stefani hadn't oversold herself. "I visited police and sheriff's departments along the route, figured out who had jurisdiction. Let's just say it was like trying to straighten out a Gordian knot, but I'd like you to examine them and see if they could be matched to those we already know."

It was a foregone conclusion, but Brennan's nod gave them all permission to return to their corners of the lab and come out investigating.

"Thank you Dr. Brennan, Dr. Saroyan." Stefani understood the pecking order, he thought as he slid into the seat across from his partner. The agent was walking away with Cam and he watched the two take the hard right turn toward the stairs, then disappear from view.

When he brought his gaze back to Bones, hers focused on the folders. Part of him wanted to tease her again, ask her if multiple skeletons were better than some moldy old bones in moldy old England, but the tone would be off, way, way off. As much as he'd like to re-capture the ease of their morning, he couldn't erase the look she now gave him.

"_Seven_, Booth."

"That's why she brought it to you," he said, his voice soothing. "She brought this to the best."

But the best, he knew, paid a price for investigating murders. She'd already given up examining the old bones, handing those over to Dr. Clark Edison so she could focus more on the new bones, the latest victims. While she'd never said anything about it, he didn't doubt she had done it for him.

And then there was the emotional toll. Even he didn't know what price she paid for some of their investigations.

A wave of guilt hit him and he offered the only thing he could. "I'll make sure Stefani doesn't get in your way."

"Several of the bodies will have to be exhumed if I am to do a thorough examination."

"Stefani will have everything we've got sent over," he offered. "Caroline will get the exhumation orders on the others."

Her fingers never left the folder she'd been reading.

"Darius Mull has a brother in Vegas, but they've been out of touch for a few years," he said. "I'm heading over to a youth center where Mull worked."

She looked up. "I'll get my things." Bones began to scoop up the pile of folders when he stopped her.

"Look," he said holding up his hand, "you've got a load of work here."

There was that hesitation, that little quirk of her head that told him she felt pulled in two directions. He smiled.

"I got this, Bones. Your time might be better used here in the lab."

He bent to kiss her and lingered feeling a bit guilty that he didn't feel guilty leaving her behind.


	5. Unanswered questions

**Unanswered questions**

oOo

Darius Mull had spent too much of his life in one of the most violent gangs in the D.C. area until he decided that three bullets in the back were a good reason to quit.

At 17, he walked away from the gangs—well, if getting jumped out was walking—and earned a GED and a chance at a community college. By 26, he was working at helping kids get a new start away from gangs.

And nobody seemed to want him dead.

At least that was the story everyone seemed to be telling him at the center. Mull worked there between 8-12 hours a day and saw almost 60 kids a week and no one knew anything.

So the end of the second day into the investigation found Booth cranky and impatient.

"You the po po. I don't got to talk to you." Attitude oozed off the latest kid who leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms in front in that universal pose of defiance Booth had come to expect here.

Booth slid a picture of Darius Mull onto the table and let the kid take a look at the young man in his prime. Mull was an impressive man, good looking and athletic, but the second picture he slid next to the first told a different story. Barely human looking, his flesh scavenged, the latest picture got the reaction he wanted.

"Yo, man. Why'd you have to show me that?" Defiance gave way to disgust and the kid, barely 12, looked ready to lose his breakfast as he tried to slingshot away from the photo.

"Sit down," Booth commanded. He explained who he was again, what he and Sweets were doing, why it was important.

"We're just talking to everyone here at the center," Sweets added. "Darius was a good man who tried to help people like yourself. He didn't deserve to end up like this."

The kid only had eyes for Sweets and nodded, swallowing hard.

Two days at the youth center that had become Mull's _de facto_ office had produced few leads. On neutral ground, the center offered recreational activities, job training and a way out for some of the young people who wanted to leave gang life or avoid it altogether. Nelsan D, a former gang member who helped run the center, was giving him a steady stream of kids Darius had worked with.

And they were coming up empty.

"Just tell us about the last time you saw Darius," Sweets continued. "Anything you tell us might help find the person who did this to Darius."

The stack of note cards in Booth's pocket was growing, but the answers were mostly the same. Darius played them straight, did them right and was respected; this latest kid was no different. They wanted to help, but they had nothing to offer. He couldn't tell if it was because he was "the po po" or if it was because he was one of "Obama's crew."

Or maybe the kids just didn't know anything and they were wasting their time.

Kid? Hell, they might be 12, 14, 16 years of age, but they'd seen enough of their corner of the war zone to turn them all into old, old men, weary and all-too-wise to the world.

"Nothin' man?"

Nelsan D slid into the seat across from him at the plywood table that served as his temporary desk. Their last interviewee was already skulking off to the gym with barely a look backward.

He sketched a no with his head and sat back. Mull deserved better, the kids deserved better. Mull's outreach program had helped a dozens of kids over the years, including Nelsan, barely 19.

"Gang leaders tolerated Darius," Booth said. "As long as he helped kids who wanted out, they gave him a wide berth."

Nelsan grimaced and seemed to be fighting back his emotions. "He was solid. Did everyone solid."

Booth hadn't found anyone who said differently. The kids respected him, trusted him as much as anyone trusted anyone down here.

"Smashing in someone's skull, that's par for the course down here," Booth said aloud. "Coupled with the torture, someone wanted something that Darius had or knew." He had a picture of Darius, the area, the life down here in no-man's-land and while the picture was done in grays and blacks with very little light for hope, Darius' blood didn't seem part of the picture. "I can't believe he's helping kids stay away from gangs or get out of the gang and no one's pissed."

Nelsan shrugged. "Man, every week is a struggle. But Darius go to the leaders and laid it all out for them. Said he was part of the neighborhood and he wasn't trying to break up their family, he was just trying to give kids an alternative family. He stood up to them without threatening them, you know what I mean?"

The one gang leader he'd already talked to, Mo' Z, had actually seemed to respect Mull. Could be that Darius Mull had helped straighten out his little sister's life and helped her get away from D.C. and Mo'Z.

Booth pulled out a card and slid it toward Nelsan. "Call me if you hear anything that might be helpful. Or just call me if you need something."

Nelsan took the card. "You don't think some dude down here did it?"

Booth again sketched a no. "More than likely someone would have said something, you would have heard something. But Darius had a truce with the gang lords and it was holding. Someone else had a beef with him."

"He was good, man. Y'know? He was real. Didn't speak bullshit to nobody."

It was the picture of Darius Mull: a sliver of hope that there was life outside of gang life. A decent man who wore the scars of his youth into adulthood as a sign that there was a future.

"Code down here is important. Counting coup means letting people know what you did." Sweets was looking off toward the kids who were playing at playing basketball. Only one, a tall, skinny kid they'd talked to that morning, a Jayson, was taking the game seriously, jamming the ball into the hoop, then repeating the action again and again, burning the movements into his muscles.

"Counting what?" Nelsan's eyes mirrored the question.

"Trophies," Booth supplied. "My partner's an anthropologist. She'd say that killing Darius down here, if it was gang related, someone would want to take credit for it and there would be some word of who or why because someone would want his death to mean something, even if it was just to be a warning to others."

"She understand how it goes down here," Nelsan said. "Why you work with an anthro whatever?"

"She's a forensic anthropologist," he corrected. "Studies bones. But she knows all that anthropology stuff, too. Comes in handy."

Nelsan rolled his lip between his teeth and pursed his lips before leaning in. "There any money in that anthropology shit, man? Darius was talking to me about college and I know I gonna need some green."

oOo

The oncoming traffic's green arrow lingered just a bit too long on MacArthur Boulevard and he found himself impatiently drumming his fingers on the steering wheel before he recognized the silence of Sweets in the passenger seat.

To his right, the psychologist seemed lost in thought, his expression one he'd seen far too often these days on Bones.

"You okay there, Sweets?"

The light switched and he eased through the intersection, glancing over at the young man.

"I'm sorry," Sweets responded slowly. "I guess I should be thinking about the case, but all I can think about is how Darius Mull chose to stay in that neighborhood and help those kids. He stayed so he could make a difference."

Booth heard something in Sweets' voice that should have warned him, but he opted for the safer route.

"I need your head in the game, Sweets," Booth said as he turned toward the Hoover. "I got his juvenile records and there's nothing in there that suggests someone had an old grudge. Minor thefts, curfew violations, but nothing major. He got shot in the back because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Sweets murmured, "Tough luck" or something like it. Then went silent again.

And that's how it was until they got to the Hoover.

oOo

His office lights had kicked in long before he noticed them. Some time after the last time he'd looked up, the bullpen's population had left and the lights outside his office had dimmed.

Hours of work and he had nothing.

Oh, Darius Mull had come into contact with most of the gang leaders in the area, and he'd pissed off one or two, but no one seemed a likely candidate for his murder. Cam had suggested that Mull had been restrained and tortured, something outside the usual for the gangs currently infecting the neighborhood Mull serviced.

Then there was Pelant. He hadn't taken a day off that case, but he might as well have given how little he had on the hacker. He'd read all the old case files, made calls to anyone connected to the cases, even went so far as to contact Pelant's professors at Stanford to come up with exactly nothing useful.

Grumbling, he reached for his coffee cup and realized a second too late that it, too, like the bullpen just outside his door, was cold and empty.

"Midnight oil?"

Framed in the doorway, Agent Maci Stefani had just enough light behind her golden hair to give her an otherworldly look. She smiled and he felt a bit like his old high school self when a pretty girl looked his way.

"Yeah, running on empty, though," he said as he turned his coffee cup upside down. "Time to go home."

"Then this can wait." She held up the file she had been holding.

"I'm a sucker for a woman with a file," Booth said, then wondered why he had caved so quickly. Stefani glided into the room and put the file into his outstretched hand.

It took him only a couple of minutes, but with a practiced eye he caught the highlights, the bits and pieces that seemed to complete the puzzle created by the truck stop killer years ago.

"You show this to Bones?"

There was that hint of a smile and a shake of her head. "You said to leave out the theories. Leave those to the cops."

The pieces seemed sound, close enough not to ignore. He looked up from the copies of the old coroner's report and saw Maci smiling at him.

"You are the best," she said.

"I've got a good team," he acknowledged and handed the file back to her. He hesitated, then added, "Bones will probably see the connection before she reads that."

The smile shone a bit less brightly. "If there is one." She looked thoughtful as she tucked the file into the crook of her arm and held it to her. "I've had a lot of people tell me they aren't connected."

"Cold cases are tough," he admitted. "The Bureau has a team for that. Why not leave it to them?"

The smile returned, lit up by the confidence of youth. "Because you're the best."

oOo

She'd left the light on for him in the front entryway and he was more than tempted to simply launch himself into his man cave and stay put or fall asleep in front of a game. He'd combed through enough old paperwork for one night and he wanted nothing more than a sweet respite from murder and mayhem.

He hated dead ends.

Apparently, so did Agent Stefani. He'd already asked around. Stephani was on the rise in the bureau, this side of thirty, tilting at windmills according to bureau scuttlebutt and she somehow managed to defeat all naysayers. She was fast-tracking toward, what? A directorship? First woman to run the venerable FBI?

His head might scream for distraction while his lower back ached for the jets upstairs, but his stomach won out as he made his way to the refrigerator but only got as far as the island before Bones emerged behind him.

"I made some of that lasagna you like."

She'd stepped from the shadows into the lighted kitchen. "I was looking through Darius Mull's files," he offered as he finished the trek to the fridge. She made no move to help him.

"He's had a few scrapes with the gangs in the past, but he brokered some kind of peace pact with them," he added as he retrieved the casserole dish. Only one small corner of the dish had been cut away. He eyed his partner who had stood near the island, the expression on her face unclear.

"You didn't come home when you said you would, Booth," she said.

While the tone was as neutral as Switzerland, the words were not.

The lasagna, too, told a tale. She'd taken the time to prepare something he liked, something that required her leaving the lab early. He weighed the casserole in his hand and then set it down on the island, the heavy dish banging against the granite.

"I got caught up in the files." He peeled off the plastic wrap and turned toward the cabinet. "Seems no one wanted him dead even though he's helping kids get out of the gangs, stay out of the gangs. . . ." He sighed and grabbed a plate. "No one wanted him dead, but he ends up dead. And dead in a very messy way."

"Cam says he was tortured, Booth."

_So are we all, _he thought, a bit testily. He tried to explain. "I know I told you when you called that I was only going to be an hour, but I wanted to touch base with that adviser he had, a Dr. . . . ."

He heard himself explaining, heard himself justifying his absence, heard himself sounding too much like his father trying to make sense of his actions.

She sighed as he wound down his explanation. "It'll heat up faster in the microwave."

He'd done a dance toward the oven with the whole casserole, but she made a few steps and interceded, taking the heavy dish from his hands and setting it back on the counter. All he could do was step back as she retrieved a knife from the drawer and cut a slab of the lasagna and set it on the dish before doing her own dance to the microwave.

As she passed, he detected the scent of baby shampoo and felt another wave of guilt pummel his conscience.

"I should have called. I could have talked to Christine before she went to bed."

"There are vegetables in the refrigerator."

Certain a debate about his diet wouldn't help matters, he obediently took out the vegetables he liked along with the tub of leafy green things she liked and set them on the island along with a bottle of wine.

This time he moved between the cabinet and the island, retrieving two wine glasses and a bowl. He uncorked the wine and poured a glass, presenting it to Bones with his best hang-dog expression.

She couldn't help but ask in that breathy way of hers, "Is this a bribe?"

"No," he said as he tried to catch her eyes, "just a peace offering."

The wine helped as did a small chirrup from the baby monitor that made them both pause, reminding them they were not alone. The cry, one that Max had once called a "never mind cry", ended just as abruptly as it began.

He looked toward Bones who was looking at him. She slid into the seat at the island and began to add lettuce to his salad bowl.

"Usually you have a theory by now of why the victim was killed."

He paused in his slicing of cucumber. "With Mull, I have a theory, but no suspects." _And with Pelant, I have a suspect, but no damn idea where he is,_ he thought. "Look," he said as he scooped up his handiwork and placed it in the dish, "Mull had his finger on the pulse of that street, he knew how it worked. My guess is he had his finger into something illegal on the street and it got him killed."

It was just the vague kind of theory she disliked, but she said nothing about that. "When I look at the bones tomorrow, I might be able to tell you something that could help."

The microwave beeped and as the aroma wafted toward him he remembered the last time she made lasagna. Whole wheat pasta, organic tomatoes, cheese from organic cows or something, triple-washed spinach. . . yes, it really was the lasagna _she_ liked him to eat, but it still had been delicious.

His neglected stomach could have tolerated a boatload of kale at this point as he pulled the food from the microwave and set it down on the counter. Bones topped his salad with slices of tomato, then sat back and retrieved her wine glass.

He wolfed down almost half of the lasagna before coming up for air.

"This is, wow," he finally said. "This is great."

She sipped at her wine.

He sat back and toyed with the salad, wondering if he could re-capture the ease he'd won from her a couple of days ago. "A week from Friday we get dressed up and go to the Jeffersonian to crown your squint squad kings and queens of the lab." He waggled his eyebrows and reached out his hand for hers. "Tony and Roxy will be looking hot."

But he couldn't easily kickstart a change of mood. She gave him a look of exasperation. "It's not a royal crown," she argued. "I can't accept an award as Roxy." Then she threw in, out of the blue, her face hauntingly sad, "Mr. Nigel-Murray's mother confirmed she is flying in to accept the award on his behalf."

He studied her. Her words had rattled past him without a chance of him understanding.

And then, that look was gone. Only later would he realize that she'd hidden away most vulnerability since he suggested they didn't need to get married, and for only the briefest of moments, she had shared her fear with him that somehow she had failed Mr. Nigel-Murray.

He squeezed her hand reflexively. "He was her son, Bones," he offered. But he had acted too slowly.

She stiffened and withdrew her hand slowly, and he saw that he hadn't even made a dent. Instead of reaching for him, she reached for her wine and held it between them, her face a study of neutrality that he knew hid a storm of questions he couldn't quite answer.

**oOo**

_**Happy Holidays to all! And let's look forward to a happy and healthy New Year!**_


	6. Night Moves

**Night Moves**

oOo

Punches, he knew, left indelible marks on one's soul. But marks could be etched there by secrets or lies as well. What marks, he wondered, were being left on his favorite atheist's soul as a result of the secret that he kept from her?

Watching Bones that morning, he couldn't help but think that both their souls were etched deeply by Pelant's demands. Score lines on the soul, ready to break, _to shatter_, and all he could so was watch helplessly.

He had no hard evidence, but that did not stop him from wondering when—when she would decide she had had enough and she would leave him. As she watched Christine eating breakfast, he knew, he just knew that the old talk about how love did not last, about how humans weren't monogamous by nature, about how people's words didn't always coincide with feelings—God, he knew those had to be replaying on an endless loop in her head, his actions slowly turning up the volume and soon she wouldn't be able to ignore the words and any day now she would cut her losses and leave him.

And then, she surprised him.

"Angela suggested that we should reserve a room for the night at the hotel where the award ceremony is being held." She stood at the island, sliding her laptop into her messenger bag, her voice slow and deliberate. "She said that since Max will be looking after Christine that we could spend the night and have sex although I told her we didn't need to go to a hotel overnight in order to have sex."

He was the romantic one, but she was offering a romantic ending for the evening out. And she was looking so. . . so hopeful and uncertain at the same time that he wanted to tell her everything if only to remove any doubt.

"Yes," he said. "Yeah, I'd like that."

She offered an escape. "We don't have to stay overnight, it's just that. . . ."

"No, wait." He raised his hand like a traffic cop. "Bones, I think it's a great idea. I just wished I had thought of it first." He smiled, trying to reassure her and closed the distance between them. "A little champagne, a little dancing and a lot of loving." Bending to kiss her, they merely brushed lips, but it helped re-capture a bit of that confidence in her expression.

"We should go," Brennan said as she pulled the messenger bag to her shoulder.

"Here, let me," he said as she began to help Christine from her seat and he caught their child in mid-flight and raised the little girl to his chest.

"Down." The descent was slow and controlled, as slow and controlled as a squirming child would allow. "Walk."

His daughter showed her genetic stripes upon landing and scampered off toward the front door where her bookbag lay ready for her.

A look toward Brennan told him all he needed to know. Quicksilver eyes couldn't quite mask just how she was studying him. "It may not be entirely rational," Bones was saying, "but I believe she missed you reading to her last night."

He had missed it, too. That morning mother and daughter had been sitting in Christine's room talking quietly and he'd only stood in the doorway watching uncertain if he wanted to intrude. But now he realized he should have. Bones never consciously excluded him in decisions about Christine, not since Pelant had forced her hand and the fear of arrest had sent her on the lam from the law, but uncertain of her own status with him right now. . . . 

"Look," he said, his own frustration bubbling just under the surface, "I'll get home at a good time tonight and I'll read to her." Bones softened a bit. "I'll make it up to her."

His daughter was splayed out by the gated stairs, the magical tokens of her bag spilled out. A small plush zebra was prancing across the pages of an open book as Christine sang-spoke a story in her own kind of foreign language.

But he missed the mark.

"You should tell _her_ that Booth."

oOo

"Bad morning?"

Agent Shaw stood framed in the doorway, her pixie features crinkled in concern.

He'd been rubbing his temple, a headache nagging at the edges of his skull brought on, no doubt, by the pouting of one 14-month-old. While Bones had assured him that she might not remember why she was pouting by noon, he wasn't so sure.

"You don't know the half of it," he said. He waved her in.

"I pulled the files on all the police officers which worked in the 7th District," Shaw noted as she stepped into the office. "I went as far back as when Darius Mull started at the youth center." She paused and his thoughts, already hovering in self-pity veered into even more dangerous territory. "Then I cross-referenced with open cases in the area."

"Just tell me."

With a deep breath and a sigh, Shaw held out the file.

She'd done a masterful job of creating a list of police officers which had worked with Mull over the years, cross-referenced with cases and status on each. In addition, she had pulled all the old, unsolved cases in the district. The world of possibilities had opened up again. Possibilities and the twisted humor of fate. He caught the notation on the third page, the case a distant memory of a different time.

He looked up to see Shaw looking back, a bit apprehensive. "I didn't know if I should have included that," she admitted. "I understand you had a relationship with the reporter."

Somehow it was fitting.

"It makes sense," he murmured under his breath. Fate was playing with him, mocking him.

"You said last night that you thought Darius Mull's death could be connected to one of these unsolved cases." Shaw continued. "There have been a number of reports about police officers who are working the wrong side of the law."

"Dirty cops," he murmured.

"Yes, sir, dirty cops."

The third page gave way to a fourth and he tried to remember why he hadn't pursued the investigation into the shooting. By the fifth, he remembered.

"When I looked into this the trail went cold." He looked up at Shaw. "And the reporter chose to keep her confidential source confidential. Made it hard to continue."

"Maybe Darius Mull was the confidential source."

And torture of the scale that Mull had endured was more in line with cops, Booth thought. "The reason why the gangs leave Mull alone is that he's got more than a finger on the pulse of the neighborhood."

"He's working with the cops."

Shaw looked satisfied with herself and with the theory.

"Care to go for a little ride tonight?" 

oOo

He'd made it to the Jeffersonian by late afternoon and swung by the nursery to check on his one girl before going to see his other one.

"Hey, you," he said picking her up from the floor where she had been playing and cradling her to his chest. "Miss me?"

She smiled that smile, pronounced him, "Dadda," and then laughed.

"Mr. Booth?"

"Mrs. Noonan."

The woman smiled and nodded toward him, but kept walking. She knew all the children in her charge as well as their parents and probably had favorites. The Hodgins, probably yes. Him and Bones? Probably no.

Children gave her little trouble and she had studied ways to cope with them when they did give her problems. It was all the parents. Fussy, neurotic, overbearing parents. 

And then there was Bones.

Thorough, scientifically curious, Bones had already earned a warning flag with Mrs. Noonan and he'd been under the shadow of it ever since.

"She's about to have her snack, Mr. Booth. Maybe you'd like to give it to her?"

Candy Baitman, Mrs. Noonan's faithful assistant in the nursery had sidled up to him. He'd earned a different kind of flag with Candy, one that seemed to put him on her radar.

Her eyes seemed to glimmer when she looked up at him.

"Yeah," he said to her and repeated the word to his daughter. "I'm going to give you your snack and I'm going to go find your mother," he told her. "Then maybe we can all go home early tonight."

Candy looked a bit disappointed, but he ignored it. "Did Dr. Brennan come by today?"

The young woman adopted the same look Mrs. Noonan usually had when Bones' name was mentioned, but he was sure her look was for a different reason.

"She's come in twice times today. Mrs. Noonan wasn't too pleased. She thinks parents. . . ."

Candy prattled on, but he barely listened because he had heard it all before. Mrs. Noonan dealt with an assortment of scientists and technicians at the Jeffersonian and a variety of parenting styles, but Bones' style taxed her to no end. A visit from Bones was bad enough for her; two must have been excruciating.

"Well, we love our little girl, now don't we?" Booth murmured and tickled her, laughing with her.

Little Bones caught his chuckle and made it her own.

"You little copy cat," he murmured. "That's mine."

She just laughed.

"You must be doing something right with her." Candy held out the milk and fruit. "She's one of the happiest children here."

"Yeah," he agreed, "we are doing something right with her. Aren't we?"

He gave his attention to his daughter because he didn't want to encourage Candy; there were other fathers around here for her to be smitten with. The young woman, disappointed, drifted off to some other part of the nursery.

"Charm should be used for good," he told his daughter as she assaulted the sippy cup then mashed the banana to her mouth. "Remember that. And don't just whip it out any old time, either. It dilutes it."

His daughter said nothing, but her wide-eyed look made her seem as if she was drinking in his advice as well as her snack.

oOo

He found his other girl in Cam's Autopsy Lab, looking over the pathologist's shoulder at the computer screen.

"Came up empty at the youth center," he said as way of greeting. "But we might have a different connection."

"We might have something," Cam replied, although she seemed to be talking mostly to her computer.

He exchanged glances with his partner. She'd already texted him a list of previous injuries and more recent ones to his knees, arms and shoulders. A picture was beginning to form.

The computer beeped then a graphic spilled onto the screen.

"His blood glucose levels were very low." Cam swiveled in her chair. "You were right."

"So Bones won the office pool," Booth said. He sometimes felt like he was walking into a different country when he walked into the lab with everyone talking a different language. "What's that mean?"

"Mull was hypoglycemic."

"Okay."

Bones began to explain, "Hypoglycemia is when. . . ."

"No," he interrupted suddenly feeling tired, "just what does it mean for our victim? Did it have something to do with his death?"

"Seeley, it might have been the first attempt to kill Darius Mull."

klast word. "Someone injected him with a large dose of insulin, used something around his neck, likely a plastic-covered wire cable, before hitting him in the back of the head."

oOo

Look at an X-ray and he could barely discern a break from solid bone. Look at a toxicology report and he rarely understood the toxins listed. But look at a person and he had a better idea of why those breaks or poisons had been employed.

Angela turned toward him. "Do you want to see it again?"

He leaned against her stool and shook his head. "Someone shoots him up with insulin, tries to strangle the guy and when all else fails, trusses him up like a Thanksgiving turkey and then clobbers him. I got the picture."

The image disappeared. But in a way, it really didn't.

He could close his eyes sometimes at night and see the recreations from Angela's computer, certainly much more sanitized than the actual crime, but still disturbing enough. Beyond those images lay the reasons why one life ends so another could continue. Those, too, could keep him up at night.

"We've got to have our own version of a body farm here beginning tomorrow," Angela said. "We don't have enough to do around here so we get 7 new sets of remains? Is this because the FBI wants Brennan to keep busy so she doesn't fly off to England?"

He caught the subtext in Angela's question—_is it because _he_ didn't want her flying off to England?_

"Stefani came to us. Thought Bones could help solve a cold case." He didn't like it much but he had to follow orders if only to preserve the team. "Mull knew something so he's tortured for that information. Just what?"

"How close are you going to be working with us? Once you close this case?"

There was subtext, there, too. "Bones say something?"

And the look. Angela had been poised on the precipice of saying something to him for some time now, but she always seemed to back off, giving him that look instead. "It's just that you seem to be distant," she said. "And now with Agent Stefani working a cold case with Brennan, it seems that you don't have any time for us."

He sighed. Substitute _Bones_ for _us_ and he knew the real point. "You and Hodgins need to find something else to talk about," he countered. "Stefani wants to fast track her career and she's thinking solving this case will do it. Why solve one murder when you can solve 7? Or 8? Or why not two dozen?"

Whatever Angela's response was lost as Hodgins arrived, Michael Vincent in hand. "Michael's ready to go home, Ange."

Eight months older than Christine, Michael already seemed to be as curious as his father with his wide-eyes and open expression. He, too, was a happy child, deeply loved and on his way to being deeply odd like his father. The T-Shirt he wore, Wild Adventurer matched his father's.

"Michael Vincent is learning the names of the arachnids in Daddy's lab. What did we just see in Daddy's lab?"

Michael Vincent began to jumble together the names of the creatures held captive in Hodgin's lab, but the effort made his father smile.

"Well, we're working on it, aren't we buddy?"

Following the Hodgins out of the one office, he made the turn toward another. Inside Bones was ramping down her computer while Christine, strapped in the stroller, seemed to be fighting the urge to sleep, her little fists boxing the air in a slow-motion match that grew slower and slower.

Watching her was a quiet respite from murders and mayhem and when Bones turned to him to go, he really just wanted to wrap them around him and forget about the rest of the world. But the rest of the world didn't follow that time clock. His phone buzzed and within seconds his plans for a quiet evening at home dissolved.

"One of the cops that worked with Mull has a sister who's diabetic. Took time off last year because she was hospitalized." He looked up from the phone.

"Go, Booth."

He was the one who preached about how the first 48 hours in a murder investigation were crucial. She was the one who preached about following the evidence. The look between them was a teeter-totter of give and take.

"Yeah, Shaw. Meet me at the 7th." He kept his eyes on his two girls as Bones was stowing her shoulder bag on the stroller. The baby was still asleep, her body slumped against the side of the seat. One of her hands still moved as if unwilling to give in entirely to rest. "We'll talk to him later when he gets off his shift." He ended the call and looked hopefully at his partner.

Bones drew in for a kiss. "You're a good father."

oOo

Night always darkened the gloom, deepened the misery of places like these, he thought. More than one cop had lost his life on these streets.

How many months had it been since she'd been shot here in Anacostia, just a few blocks away?

He hadn't thought of Hannah in months, but that's what waiting did. Strange thoughts came out of the shadows to haunt a tired mind. Especially in the angular shadows cast in Anacostia.

"Hey, Shaw, what do you think? Think he's our guy?"

The cell phone offered only silence. "Shaw?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't think we have enough to go on."

It was a gamble. But he wanted Officer Jim Banks to be put off balance by a late night visit on the job.

"You talked to this guy? Didn't get a sense of something from him?"

Shaw was tough, thorough. She had spent the day talking to the cops Mull dealt with regularly and her reports showed a good understanding of how the social worker fit into their world.

"He's got a good record, only one complaint in his jacket. Asked to be assigned to the Gang Task Force."

She read him more on the cop, but he had already made up his mind. The insulin was too much of a coincidence, too convenient. Banks knew something and the sooner they figured out what, the sooner they could crawl into their beds and say goodnight to the world.

He studied his watch again and sighed.

His daughter was eating dinner and so was Bones, he figured. If he could get some information quickly, he might be able to put Christine to bed with a story to inform her dreams.

"Banks is at 3 o'clock, sir."

Three cops were coming out of the precinct, Banks leading the way like the point of a wedge.

"You know the others?"

"Johnson and Seward. Same unit."

He didn't much like the numbers, but he didn't much like where they stood with the case. He stepped out from the SUV and slammed the door shut. One of the cops gave him a look, but they all seemed more focused on their own vehicles.

"John Banks?"

He flashed his badge. "I need to talk to you about Darius Mull."

And that's how a night out became a late morning.

With his arms outstretched across the bed, face buried in his pillow, it was the pose that a lover had once said made it look like he was hanging onto sleep for dear life. It beat the alternative.

Banks had been evasive, hiding something and a trip back to the office and back through files revealed little hard evidence to back up his gut feeling. The other cops, Derek Johnson and Marcus Seward, offered up little as well.

But the bed was warm and soft and he felt little compunction to get up.

He sacrificed one eye to the light and checked the time.

Bones was at the lab, the little one was at the daycare, and despite his directions, Shaw was probably at the office, going over more files.

The world was moving while he was holding onto sleep for as long as he could.

His cell buzzed and he let it go to voice mail. It buzzed again.

By the third buzz he had abandoned any hope for additional sleep and began to climb out of bed.

He hadn't anything to drink, but his head felt heavy and his body ached and when his phone buzzed for a fourth time, he debated whether to toss it against the wall or check the caller IDs.

He chose the latter.

Shaw 3, Bones 1.

With his assistant in the lead, he chose her calls to answer first.

"Mull had contact with a task force that wasn't part of the 7th."

"That's not surprising," he said, suppressing a yawn. "Gangs are a city-wide problem."

"Hard and dangerous," she repeated from last night's conversation. "But don't you think they should reach out to us? We should start looking at them."

She sketched a few of the officers on the force as he padded his way toward the bathroom. Ending that call, he tried Bones but got her voicemail.

She was probably knee deep in bones and he let it go, opting for a long conversation with the shower instead.

It gave him time to think, wash away the cobwebs which had been formed in sleep. Mull's past needed more research as did the old set of cops. He'd get an update from Bones and Stefani before going to Hacker.

Talking to Hacker wasn't high on his list, but he couldn't ignore the lingering question marks Hacker had drawn surrounding the truck stop murders. Stefani might be poised to step into working regularly with the Jeffersonian—all she had to do was prove she could speak squintspeak and keep Bones from shredding her and she could use their record to catapult herself to a bigger office.

He ended the shower when his phone buzzed again, and he stepped out quickly to answer it, the small dribble of water haloing where the call-back button had been on his smartphone.

"Booth?"

"Bones, I'm just getting out of the shower." His grunts and a groan when his toe found something solid brought out her concern.

"I'm fine," he said, kicking the offending shoe out of the way. "I undressed in the bathroom last night so I wouldn't wake you."

He lost her comment as he could hear other people in the background demanding her attention.

When she tried to tell him something about the new case—or was it the Mull case?—he lost it as he tried to pull a T-shirt over his head.

"Look, Bones," he finally said, giving up on the non-conversation, "I'll see if I can meet you for lunch later."

He lost her before he could say good-bye, the serial case demanding much more of her attention than he could steal away.

It was enough for him to wander down to the kitchen and try to whip up breakfast and a little enthusiasm for the day. Sitting down to the omelet he'd managed, it was interrupted by the buzz of the phone.

Caroline was in rare form.

"You don't have enough murders to solve that you need to add a cold serial killer case to your workload?"

He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down heavily.

"Good morning to you, too, Caroline."

"Seven old bodies. What are you going to do? Put together a skeleton football team?"

"You're a few short," he countered. "Just trying to solve murders, Caroline." It was the party line, but he was growing tired of it. "Bones says each one of the reports are incomplete. And Agent Macy Stefani is handling that case; I've got the Mull murder."

He could drive his SUV through the silence on the line.

"Did something happen, Cherie?" Caroline's voice had grown concerned. "Normally you're handling everything out of that big lab of your partner's."

"Agent Stefani's the agent in charge on that case. Hacker green-lighted it."

Caroline offered a new possibility. "Maybe you should be getting a bigger office."

"I like my office just fine, Caroline."

"If you say so."

He updated her on the Mull case and promised to stop by her office to go over his testimony for an upcoming trial when she shifted gears on him.

"I can put in a good word, you know, Cherie."

"Caroline, I'm fine. Things are great."

"If you say so."

He repeated his words, but as he ended the call, he felt that old, familiar feeling of uncertainty.

The conundrum would have to wait as he rinsed off the few dishes he'd used and left them in the sink. He checked the grocery list on the refrigerator and added two decidedly unhealthy snacks sure to raise his partner's eyebrows if not her ire.

She'd tell him he was putting his arteries at risk and he would invoke his rights and by the time they finished, he'd negotiate her down to one.

It was a silly game, but one he hadn't played with her for a while. He was debating adding another note, something far more personal and probably illegal if performed at their local grocers when his cell buzzed again.

"Agent Booth?" Shaw's voice, even though she tried to make it professional and even, was faster and higher with excitement. "I think I found a motive for killing Darius Mull."

"And it involves you."


	7. The Two Step

**The Two-Step**

oOo

He hadn't looked at the file in months; hadn't really given it much thought since he'd filed it away almost two years ago.

A reporter gets shot in Anacostia. She says she's running down corruption in the police department, supposed to meet an informant. Meets with a bullet instead. The bullet yields no real leads. Neither does the reporter who saw nothing tangible despite her keen observational skills.

She won't reveal her source and her informant disappears in the ragged shadows of Anacostia.

With the leads that led to that ill-advised trip into one of the roughest areas of D.C. drying up, there's little anyone can do.

Dead end.

"Your name was in the notebook."

The leaden feeling in his gut anchored him to the spot. _Coincidences are just another name for connections in a murder investigation_, he thought. But the thought gave him little comfort.

The spiral notebook in Shaw's hand held a treasure trove of names and dates and she held it out to him as well as copies of the original police report.

Genny Shaw was trying for discretion but he wanted to shoot the very Fates which were screwing with him: revisit an old case and further strain the relationship he had with Bones because it probably would put him in contact with an old mistake, and. . . .

"No." _Pay attention to your breathing. Line up the target. Squeeze the trigger._ "No. She gave me everything she had at the time. It went nowhere." He didn't notice the irony in his words. "Start cross referencing Mull's notebook with all cases in the 7th."

"Sir?"

Of this he was certain. "I made some cursory inquiries about the shooting. But Hannah wouldn't give me any details about her informant. Couldn't really. Her editor effectively killed the story by sending her out of town on assignments. She got too busy to pursue it."

"And you, sir?"

"I turned everything I had over to the joint task force looking into police corruption." And when he had lost interest in Hannah, he'd lost interest in the case as well. "Like you said, Mull was keeping tabs on activities by the cops in the 7th as well as the gangs. We need to sort out what is on the books and what isn't."

"Then who sent it to you?"

_That_ was the million dollar question. Good money was on Pelant as part of his sick game to pull him away from looking for him. "Mull's murder came to us because the body was found on federal land. Someone probably knows enough about these cases to know who they would go to."

"Mull's apartment was ransacked before we got there. . . ."

"Which fits into the torture scenario," he interjected.

". . . Then our forensic team scoured it."

"Your point?"

Shaw hesitated, but then shook her head. "Nothing, sir. It just seems someone is trying to direct our murder investigation."

"Or disrupt it."

He could tell she wanted to say something more, but she nodded curtly and headed back to her desk in the bullpen.

_Damn_. His head began to ache with this latest piece of the puzzle that, by all rights, he should be celebrating. It gave them a clear motive; Mull had something on someone and while the notebook wasn't exactly a smoking gun, it was their best lead. But that didn't erase the headache that this case had become.

"Do you have a minute?"

Framed in the doorway of his office, Agent Maci Stefani was giving him a look of sympathy.

It only reminded him of how she always seemed to catch him at a bad time. "Do we have an appointment?"

The long shake of his head should have spelled trouble for him, but even with his senses on high alert because of Pelant, he didn't see this coming.

"I know someone who can help your case."

oOo

Somehow he had missed this part of town on the tour. Yeah, he'd seen back alleys and shooting galleries, even the sewer system of D.C., but this was a new one. Outside the place looked like any of the other homes on the block—ratty front lawn, rusted cyclone fence, crumbling concrete stoop. A house that wore its vinyl siding unwillingly—several strips had been replaced in a catch as catch can fashion. Bones had labeled one house they'd looked at in their search for a home as being sad and lonely and while this house qualified, so did every other house on the block.

What made this place stand out, in his mind, was the interior decorating.

Steel plates lined the walls—half-inch thick by his guess. Peep holes had been cut into the plate near what probably were the windows. Each peep hole had a corresponding cover made of the same, half-inch steel that was locked in place by heavy screws.

To add to the steely grey interior, the sparse furnishings included three chairs, all dark grey or black. One chair was aimed toward a big screen TV. Next to that chair was a bookcase whose content added the only hint of color in the room with shelves of videos and one lone shelf with books.

Floor lamps lit the place giving it an unearthly glow as the lights seemed to be absorbed by the grey metal lining the walls.

He'd left his gun in his car per Stefani's instructions and slid his badge in to his belt so that it hung at his waist. Stefani stood next to him, gunless, her badge tucked into the waistband of her pants.

From Stefani's sketchy description, he'd already inferred Big Daddy Diamond had been in the upper echelons of one of D.C.'s gangs. The man had a rap sheet as long as his arm, but since he'd left prison more than 7 years ago, he had left the gang life behind to become the patron saint of his neighborhood, erecting a string of apartment for low-income families.

Despite Big Daddy's U-turn, every nerve was on high alert.

A small video camera high in the corner of the room jerked to life and he wanted as much to rip it out of the wall as to break one of the chairs into weapon-grade sticks if just to ease his own tension.

"Face the camera," Stefani instructed and he did. She then put her hands in the air and made a slow rotation. "Your turn," she said when she was done.

He mirrored her actions, his agitation just bubbling beneath the surface. Booth felt like a trapped rat.

But not for long. The lone door opened. The large black man stepped into the room, the same man who has admitted them earlier, a semiautomatic gun now aimed at them. He perused them both then gestured through the open doorway.

Another black man, stooped and and much, much smaller, wheeling a portable oxygen generator, shuffled into the room. His clothes were ill-fitting—a denim shirt over a white T-shirt, baggy jeans that hung like drapery from a belt at his waist.

"Big Daddy."

At his name, the man looked up. One eye was clouded and dead, but the other was alert and unblinking.

"Agent Macy Stefani of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Contacted me about this Mull business. Sad, sad case. Darius Mull was a good, good man. He deserved good things. Good things."

Stefani held out her hand and Big Daddy let go of his oxygen generator long enough to take her hand in both of his.

"You have to excuse an old man for staring. It's not often I get to see a beautiful woman up close."

Stefani smiled and beckoned to him. "This is Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI. He's investigating the murder of Darius Mull."

The lone eye bore into him. "You think you going to arrest the men that did that?"

"I have every intention of solving the case."

Big Daddy harrumphed and shuffled the few steps to the chair. He lowered himself into his seat, then beckoned toward them.

"You bring it?"

Stefani nodded and went to retrieve the video camera and tripod she'd brought in from the car.

"When you've got that on, we'll talk."

Big Daddy sat back in his chair and watched Stefani carefully as she extended the legs of the tripod and screwed the camera onto the top of the pan head.

A small electronic chirp signaled she was ready. "It's on."

"Turn that."

She swiveled the view screen so that Big Daddy could see himself. He waved it away when he was satisfied and Stefani swiveled it back to face her. Stefani identified herself on camera and Booth followed, adding the date for the record. "Your associate?"

The large black man strode to the camera and stood still as Stefani panned to him and he stated his name. "Dennis G. Roberts, 28. I work for Mr. Diamond as a body guard and caregiver."

"You're on, Big Daddy." 

Stefani trained the camera on the man in the chair and nodded to him.

"I am known as Big Daddy Diamond, but my birth name is Derek Moore Diamond. I am 67. Agents Stefani and Booth have requested my help in finding the people responsible for the death of Darius Mull. I do not know that young man. Never met him. But I know him by reputation as a good man. They haven't used coercion or bribes or any trickery of any kind to get this information. I'm giving it up freely." He looked toward Stefani who gave him a sharp nod. "Information has come to me from sources I'm not at liberty to disclose, but suggest who the killers of this Darius Mull are. A number of people in the neighborhood come to visit me and bring me information about what is happening around the area. About a year ago. . . ."

The camera silently recorded the entire story. How the cops who had been part of the gang unit had started using gang members to mule the drugs they were skimming from their own busts.

More than just a story, Big Daddy had names and dates and more. He had enough information to re-start his investigation and bring down more than just murderers.

Booth leaned in to listen.

oOo

"And you trust him, sir?"

Genny Shaw set the box of Chinese food on the conference table. "Why would a gang member. . . ."

"Ex-gang leader," he corrected. "He gave it up years ago."

"Okay, ex-gang leader. Why would he cooperate in a murder investigation?"

Booth leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "He wants to see heaven."

"Sir, if I may say so, that does not make sense."

He hadn't cared that he hadn't trusted it at first, either. But when the information began to help him piece together everything, he had accepted the old man's reasons.

"He's dying. Cancer. His heart is going. It's a race to see which one will do him in. Doctors give him months to live." He liked stories of redemption even if he didn't completely believe in Big Daddy. "For every life he can save or everyone he can help bring to justice, he's one step closer to heaven."

"That's not how it works, sir." Shaw hesitated. "Is it?"

"Redemption comes in many different forms." He stood up and began to reach for a carton. "It fits."

"If you say so, sir." Shaw reached for her own carton and a pair of chopsticks.

Another call to Bones, another late night. She'd offered to help him, but he had declined.

He should be tired, too, but with a new direction for the case, he felt a new energy.

Shaw was trying to piece together the scenario. "Darius Mull comes across information that cops are skimming drugs and drug money from their busts and then re-selling the drugs using some of the same gang members as their dealers."

"He confronts them?"

He shook his head.

"They confront him?"

Again he shook his head.

"He reports them." Shaw was looking exasperated.

"Bingo." Booth slid a file folder toward her and began to open his carton. "He was supposed to meet with Major Crimes, but he doesn't show."

Shaw looked incredulous. "But wouldn't Major Crimes inform you that Mull was one of their informants?"

"They never knew he was their informant."

Agent Macy Stefani stepped into the room, grinning smugly. "He called in a tip, sure he couldn't go to the cops with the information since the cops were running the drugs. He called the Crime Hotline and was assigned a pin number."

"But the Crime Hotline tips go to the police," Shaw argued. "Darius Mull was streetwise. He wouldn't have made a mistake like that. And how would you know that he is an informant?"

Booth considered the young woman. Eager, determined, smart. She was a quick learner, a fine addition to his team. But she still needed to learn the ins and outs of the FBI.

"Where are we, Shaw?"

"The Hoover Building."

"Think bigger." He was enjoying the game.

"D.C.?" It took her only a moment before she understood. "The FBI also receives all those tips in the name of security because this is D.C."

"Mull could have used the pin number to meet with the FBI and give them additional information. He didn't, at least not yet. But the cops didn't know that."

"How did they know Mull had anything to do with it?"

Big Daddy had given them that, too. Booth outlined how Mull had been probably been exposed. Shaw's head began to bob as she saw how the pieces fell into place. She began using her chopsticks like a baton, orchestrating her next moves. "We'll need to get any files. . . ."

He beamed at her. "Already done."

It took her only two beats for the next move. "You'll need to leverage one of the police officers."

"Who?"

He opened the file folder he'd pushed toward her earlier and spread out the photos of the police officers suspected in the drug theft. It didn't take her but a minute.

"This one."

It had been his choice, too. A man with a wife and two young children and a third one on the way. Paul D'Angelo. Roman Catholic. Close to his parents. Married to his high school sweetheart.

A man with much, too much to lose.

Booth nodded and smiled at her. "Then that's who we'll try to turn."

Shaw's surprise was almost refreshing. "You're going on my recommendation, sir? Shouldn't you talk to Dr. Sweets? See who he thinks we should talk to?"

Stefani was watching everything and he felt emboldened by having an audience. Besides, his gut reaction was that D'Angelo was the one. "You've worked hard on this one, Shaw. I trust your judgment."

The junior agent seemed to stand straighter as newly conferred confidence washed over her. "Then I should read through the files, sir."

It was something out of one of those old black and white movies Bones and her father would watch. He leaned back into his chair and stabbed at the noodles in his carton as Shaw began to leave for her desk in the bullpen. "Oh, but, how did you know Mull contacted Crime Stoppers, sir?"

He smiled and held up a photocopy of Mull's calendar. In it he'd put appointments, meetings, insights into his world. At the corner of the page was a phone number and beneath it a pin number.

"I checked the logs." Booth felt the tumblers falling into place. "It's a match for the CS phone number and for the information on the cops."

The look of admiration from Shaw was enough to boost Booth's own confidence in the case.

He saw Stefani just step into the room as Shaw was exiting. The older woman stood watching Shaw's departure before turning toward him.

"That's the kind of loyalty I want," Stefani said. She slid into the chair beside him and grabbed at the last carton. "I want to know how to use people effectively like that. She's completely committed to this case and it's more than just because she wants to solve a mystery."

Booth said nothing, simply savored his dinner.

"God, you know how to use your people to their fullest." She flashed a smile at him. "I can learn so much from working with you. So much."

A small smile played her lips. "You know, people might think you're good because you've got the resources of the Jeffersonian, but I think you're good because you know how to use those resources."

Somehow dinner out of a box never tasted so good.

oOo

Lately he'd crawled into bed, bone weary or simply numb, but tonight he felt an electric spark that couldn't be contained. He practically danced into Christine's room to check on her and had to restrain himself from waking her up and waltzing with her around the room.

He felt no need to restrain himself in his own bedroom. Or bed.

Practically leaping into bed, he bounced like an antic Tigger, trying to waken his partner.

"Booooth," she groggily elongated his name. "What time is it? Is it the baby?"

"Munchkin's good. Everything's good."

She turned stiffly toward him. "Did you make an arrest?'

"No," he admitted, "but tomorrow we're looking at multiple arrests and taking down a bunch of crooked cops."

This news was met with a yawn. And a query. "Aren't you the one who says you shouldn't tabulate poultry before they incubate?"

"Count your chickens before they hatch, Bones." The electric spark was beginning to fizzle. "The lead's really good. We should be able to get one cop to roll over on the others."

"Roll over?" She drew in her breath and released it in a sigh. "What does that mean for Darius Mull?"

"I'm going to take down a bunch of crooked cops tomorrow, Bones."

"Did you talk to Caroline?"

"No."

The silence acted as a vacuum, sucking out bits of his good mood.

"C'mon, Bones. It's a good case. Everything points to them. They were part of the Gang Task Force. They'd regularly arrest gang members, mules. . . ."

"What do mules. . . ?"

"People who carry drugs from point A to point B." He shifted in bed, sidling up closer to her. "They bust them and log in only part of the drug cache and then sell back the rest of it to the gang. Their dealers and mules go down for smaller amounts, the gangs get their product and the cops get the money. Classic case."

He loved that he had the whole picture now.

"But what about Darius Mull? Do you know who exactly killed him?"

"Well. . . no."

"Doesn't he deserve justice, Booth?"

Her tone was neutral, but it smothered the last spark he'd had.

"I'll figure it out, Bones."

But all he was met with was a soft sigh.

With the electric energy gone, he felt spent and he huffed, rolled over and laid claim to his half of the bed.

It took him a long time to fall asleep.

oOo

The dream came on the cusp of waking, recklessly racing, propelling him through blurring images that never quite came into focus until suddenly he woke with a start.

The sounds of the shower, muffled by the closed door, helped ground him as he tried to still his racing heart. Gulping in air, he pushed the covers away and swung around to sit up.

Alone in bed. He glanced at the time and made a mental calculation. It was still early for him. Still groggy and slightly unsettled by the dream, he simply sat on the edge of the bed, slowly stretching his muscles.

The shower shut off and within minutes Bones emerged in a robe, her hair still damp, curling around her face. "Hey," he said in greeting. "Do you have to go in early?"

"No," she said, "just thought it would be nice to read for a while."

"Read?" The electric spark was back and he waggled his eyebrows at her.

"I checked on Christine," she said, closing the distance between them, "she's still asleep."

If there was anything else to say, it had been lost as she insinuated her body between his legs and bent to kiss him. They exchanged kisses, the spark having ignited a flame in him and his hands found her robe sash and loosened it as she pulled at his T-shirt. For several minutes he caressed the bare skin beneath the robe, still warm and damp from the shower. Bones, somehow, had found her own expanse of skin and was ghosting her fingers against his shoulders and arms. Coming up for air, he pulled the robe free, then pulled her to the bed.

He felt her hands find the waistband of his shorts and he began to help her peel those out of the way when his phone buzzed.

"Ignore it," he moaned as his mouth was about to claim the soft skin just below her ear. "It's a wrong number."

But his phone buzzed again and Bones sighed heavily as he peeled himself away to grab at it.

Splayed out on the bed just waiting for him, Booth eyed Brennan greedily, groaned, then turned to the phone.

"This better be good," he groused.

But it wasn't good.

Most things in his line of work weren't.


	8. Shadow Deep

**Shadow Deep**

oOo

Cam stood to the side as Bones squatted next to the corpse.

Her recitation confirmed the worst of it for him. "African American. . . male. . . late 60s. . . ."

"Did he die in the fire?"

He saw the answer before her words confirmed it. "This position of the body. . . ."

The body looked like it was ready to fight, hands curled into fists, arms up to block the blow or deliver one of its own. But he had no chance against the fire. It had delivered its own kind of knock out.

Cam craned her neck toward him. "You know him?"

He closed his eyes and nodded. "Tell me the other was shot."

Cam bent to the second corpse just feet away. Her gloved hands gently shifted the skull. "No. No gunshot to the back of his head," she confirmed. "Sorry, Seeley."

This body, too, seemed ready for a boxing match, arms cocked, ready for battle. But how did you fight a fire deliberately set to kill you?

He kicked at the ground, causing Cam to put up her hands. "Whoa, Seeley. Take it somewhere else. Crime scene here."

So he took it somewhere else. Problem was, he thought, it seemed to follow him no matter where he went.

He felt their eyes on him. Bones and Cam both gave him a long look before bending back to their tasks, but a few of the techs stared openly. "I need an ID as soon as possible," he snapped.

Bones' head came up slowly at his tone, but he ignored it. "Firefighters say the door was blocked on the outside. They didn't have a chance."

"Seeley. . . ."

Cam had decided to be peacemaker, but he ignored her, ignored the whole damn mess and started toward the group of police officers milling around at the sawhorses someone had erected to hold back the nosey neighbors. He was surprised the neighborhood rated anything so civilized given the late occupants of the row house.

"Officer Logan?" Normally he tried to not ride the locals, but he didn't know who was on his side and who wasn't and frankly, he just didn't give a damn.

Part of him wanted a slight hesitation, the wrong look—anything—so he could use his authority, punish someone for the two dead men on site, but Logan only nodded gravely and scanned the sparse crowd.

They were looking for shadows.

He stood apart for a while, listening to the comments from the crowd, the stray thoughts that percolated among the spectators. Who must have finally ended Big Daddy's life? What had his presence done to the neighborhood? Who would step in next?

Nothing useful really, only rumors, idle talk. But he felt the responsibility for a man's death almost as if he had lined him up in his sights and pulled the trigger.

"Booth?" Bones had appeared at his side, concern lacing her voice. "You aren't to blame for this."

Somehow she'd learned to read his moods, understand him like she could understand no other, and while he should be flattered, should feel something because she had done that for him, he felt only anger.

"Yeah because I just don't have a spare gallon of gas on me."

The sarcasm confused her for only a moment, but she didn't react except to grab his elbow and push, pull him toward the SUV, its lights adding to the kaleidoscope of colors washing the early morning sky.

"What? What the hell, Bones?" She didn't deserve his anger, but when she ignored it, that only made him more angry at the situation. "All I need from you is cause of death and a positive ID."

"You said yourself that any number of people might have wanted him dead, Booth. He might have been little more than a tribal elder in the gang simply waiting to die, but that didn't inoculate him from his past crimes."

"Bones," he leaned over her, "all I need from you is a report."

He'd meant only to stop her from trying to soothe his conscience, but she would have none of it.

"Why are you so angry? You don't know if talking to him yesterday caused this."

This time he did the pulling, drawing her to the other side of the SUV, away from prying eyes and ears.

"He died in that fire," he hissed. "Dirty cops did this. I don't care what I said before. You are not going out in the field on this one."

If there was a protest, she held onto it. The slight bob of her head told him she would acquiesce even if she did not like it. But he was sure the argument wasn't entirely over.

"Agent Booth?" Officer Logan stood awkwardly to the side. "Don't mean to interrupt, but I have a message for you." He pointed to a young black boy, barely older than 8 or 9, standing next to a female police officer. The boy looked a bit uncomfortable held in place by the officer's hand on his shoulder.

Logan handed Booth an iPhone and stood expectantly to the side.

A Post-It note was attached to the screen of the phone: "Maybe this will help."

oOo

The images were damning.

One video after another showed police officers stopping and detaining young black or Hispanic males, then boldly dividing up the drugs or other contraband they rousted from them.

"The iPhone is registered to Darius Mull," Angela intoned as Mull's body remained on the screen of her computer, frozen in timeless pain. "All of the images are date stamped weeks or days before his death. I'm sorry it took a while to get past the password."

"FBI techs couldn't find any fingerprints on it," Booth added. "Wiped clean."

"It looks as if this image was shot through a grating of some kind." Angela zoomed out to the original photo. Along the edges of the photo it clearly showed evenly spaced blurs that suggested. . . .

"Bars?" Booth asked. "Like the kind they have on windows?"

"Maybe."

"And the other files?"

"Date stamped weeks, some days before his death. They were sent from a computer as pdf files and saved onto the phone." Angela turned toward him. "Caroline says that the phone and its files will be admissible, right?"

Next to the video playing on her computer, Angela still had a recreation of how Darius Mull had been bound prior to his death. There was something familiar in Mull's position, practically resembling a human S, but Booth dismissed it as some faded memory from his time in the military. "Yeah," he said, "Caroline thinks we're good to go. You didn't find any tampering and the FBI techs believe that it wasn't hacked."

File after file cascaded onto her screen, lists of dates of arrests and near arrests. "Shaw's comparing these to the police logs," he said. As if on cue, his phone buzzed and one glance gave him all he needed to know. He showed the phone to Angela. "We've got a match."

"Should I send this to Brennan?"

To her question, he shook his head. "No." Usually they shared information, but anger outweighed the sense of partnership. What was another secret in a summer of secrets? Right now he wished that the cops were all stewing in holding, just waiting to find out just how damning the evidence was against them. But he had to hunt them down and he knew all too well that cornered animals were more dangerous. "Agent Stefani's going with me."

"So you're working the case with her?"

"I'm the cop," he pronounced. "You just do your squinty stuff."

His phone buzzed again and he snapped it on. "Booth."

Caroline was on the other end. "You're good to go, Cherie. Go get those bastards."

Snapping it off, he stood before the monitors watching as Angela was organizing the pages along a timeline. Darius Mull had done more than been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He'd provided enough evidence to bring down the men he had once worked with.

"Do you think he just had some kind of falling out with the cops?"

That part of the story was still thin. "Nothing in his finances suggested he was in on the drugs." No, the good guys had become the bad guys and while it might take more time to determine who had actually murdered Mull, they were taking dirty cops off the streets. "They probably figured out he had this evidence on them and tortured him to find it. They hoped it would die when he did."

He turned, giving the screen another glance before he took off toward the Ookie Room.

Two large plexiglass cases had been wheeled into the spare space there and he knew that in time hordes of beetles would be swarming over what had been the human forms of Big Daddy and his caregiver/bodyguard. Cam was standing off to the side, her attention taken up by a computer terminal.

Looking up, she considered him before turning back to her computer. "I thought Caroline would have gotten your warrant by now."

He leaned against the post and watched her. She was bringing up toxicology information on the morning bodies and he watched as the screens dissolved into graphs revealing a myriad of peaks and valleys.

He could wait for someone to explain it all to him. What he needed was an objective eye, another voice, a different explanation.

Cam finally looked up. "I know that look. What's the problem, Seeley?"

His gut proved right more times than not, but his instinct seemed tied up in knots. "Something Bones said on the way back from the crime scene this morning." He stepped closer to his friend. "She said it seemed lucky that the phone just appeared."

"It was."

"Bones doesn't say things like that. She doesn't believe in luck. She doesn't believe in the whole confluence of the universe coming together, she believes in the rational."

He wasn't going crazy, he thought, He couldn't be.

"You think you got lucky."

"Sometimes it happens."

What he appreciated about Cam was that she would carefully consider everything before giving her assessment.

"People get lucky. Wasn't there an article about a woman who won the lottery three times?" Cam swiveled her chair toward him. "Sometimes things aren't rational."

"Yeah." He straightened. "I'm going to borrow Stefani for a while." He ignored the look Cam gave him and headed toward the double doors.

Sometimes evidence just fell in your lap, he reminded himself. Sometimes luck is the only thing between a solved case or a cold one.

And he was going to ride the luck on this one until it ran out.

oOo

"Here's to a great team!"

He clinked his glass against the one raised and took a good, long sip of his whiskey.

He deserved it.

"It's a great tradition," Stefani said as she rested her wine glass on the table. "Drinks after." She smiled, that same radiant smile that he had seen that first night when she'd crashed his crime scene. "To many more successes."

He felt the warmth of the liquor in the back of his throat and considered just how long it had been since he'd been out at the Founding Fathers celebrating a case. Sure he had solved several cases since then, but he'd done his celebrating at home. With Bones. But he'd barely been home and now, he felt a kinship with Stefani, a righting of things that had been off-kilter for a while.

"You did good work in interrogation," he offered. "Fine work, really."

"That," she said raising her wineglass, "is a compliment coming from you."

He punctuated her comment by downing the last of his drink and signaling for another.

"It's got to be different these days," she said, "your team's a bit fragmented, what with me pulling them in a totally different direction on another case." She paused before lifting her glass again. "I don't think you know just how much they respect and admire you."

He felt the heat of a blush—something he hadn't felt since Melissa Everhart had kissed him in front of his fifth grade class.

"I am not kidding," she said, her hand briefly patting his thigh before wrapping itself around her wineglass. "They are totally your team. I feel honored to be working with them."

Part of his brain wanted to protest, to give Bones and Shaw and the others part of the credit, but something held him back. Somehow it felt good for someone else to acknowledge him.

"To us," he said as his new drink arrived and he raised it as a toast. "To my team."

By the time he'd finished reviewing the success of his investigation with a very willing listener, it was late, far too late to call the others to come down and join in. He made his way home slowly in the SUV, an eye on his speed and another on the streets. While he was sure he hadn't had too much to drink—he and Stefani had plowed through sandwiches and a basket of fries, too—he still didn't want to tempt the Fates.

Pulling up into the driveway, he cut the engine and sat in the car for a few moments trying to decipher the feeling he'd had all evening. Somehow the tag team of Booth and Stefani had pummeled the two cops into confessions on the drugs. They hadn't incriminated themselves on Mull or Big Daddy, but Caroline had given him a thumbs up on charging them. The task force wanted a crack at them and he'd gladly hand them over if only to clear his plate to take on Stefani's cold case.

All in all, it had been a good night.

Gingerly stepping from the SUV, he felt a bit lightheaded, but gulping in the cool night air, he found a steadiness he hadn't been feeling of late, a sense of control.

That control held steady just like his mood, fueled by success, a corned beef on rye and a smooth single malt whiskey.

"Hey Bones," he called out, unmindful of Christine. "Bones?"

Clad in a robe, his partner stepped out of the shadows of the living room, a towel in one hand, a book in another.

"I just put Christine down." Her whispery voice contained a warning. "She's not being very reasonable tonight."

"She's a baby," he countered, his voice softer. "Baby's by definition are not reasonable, rational or reliable except when it comes to pooping and peeing and eating so they can do the first two things. Repeatedly and with great élan."

She sighed. "You've been drinking."

"I've been celebrating."

"Shaw said that you arrested two police officers."

In the subdued light, his eyes refused to focus properly and he couldn't quite make out the look she gave him.

"Caroline's throwing books at them."

"How's throwing a book at them. . . ."

"No," he said cutting her off. "They confessed to skimming the drugs and reselling them. Police logs show they saw the Crime Stopper transcripts."

"How?"

"How what?"

"How do you know they saw the logs?"

"Everyone who looks through the transcripts has to sign a log book." He'd been through this same information more than a few times and he was tired of repeating himself. "Look, it's late. Just know that we've got a pretty solid case against them."

"But it's mostly circumstantial on the murder charges."

"Bones, what do you want me to say?" He took her by the arm and tried to steer her toward their bedroom. "We're charging them with the drugs and with murder and when they're convicted they are going to go away for a very long, long time."

"Shaw said that Agent Stefani was in the interrogation room with you."

Oh, he saw where this was going. "No, noooo, you aren't going to do this."

"Do what?"

It might have been the liquor still coursing through his veins, it might have been the lateness, it might have been the look of innocence she had, but his words came out more forcefully than he intended. "Stefani was great in there."

She wouldn't back down. "We're partners, Booth, for a reason."

"Yes," he nodded, his head becoming lightheaded on the downward stroke and protesting the upward movement. "We are partners. But partners know their strengths."

"I can help, Booth. You've said yourself that I am very good at observing and I am objective. The evidence doesn't give a clear indication. . . ."

Letting her ramble on, he got them closer to the bedroom before he'd had enough.

"You know, sometimes you forget. I am the cop, Bones. I know you don't think so, but I know the cop stuff." He leaned toward her, his head finding the movement a bit too uncertain, but he held steady despite the shifting of the hallway around him. "I am the cop. You are the squint. I am in charge of the cop things. You are in charge of the squint things. Separate but equal division of things."

He straightened, his head beginning to orbit the room. Whatever protest she offered he ignored as he took the last few steps toward the bathroom. He could hear her through the door, the words running into each other. But even though his head was resting against the cool of the mirror, the room still seemed to be moving around him.

It took several minutes for both Bones' protests and the room to settle down.

oOo

"We believe the timeline of the murders is different than the one the original investigators put together."

Booth felt his eyelids pulling together, heavy and uncooperative. He opened his eyes wide in an effort to tame the eyelids, but the effort gave him only temporary control.

"Seeley?" Cam looked bemused. "Late night?"

Late night, early morning, angry partner. Booth was almost glad for the fogginess of a hangover. While Bones wasn't exactly glaring at him, she wasn't exactly not glaring and he really couldn't take her anger on top of the pounding in his head.

"Christine's not sleeping well," he explained, shooting a glance at Brennan. "She doesn't sleep well, we don't sleep well."

Bones actually looked well rested, and her raised eyebrows told him he would have his little white lie to pay for later.

"We just wanted to give you an overview of what the team's come up with so far." Stefani looked crisp and fresh in her suit, no trace of a hangover. "This won't take long, Agent Booth."

He half-listened as the three women combined to tell the story of the 8 skeletons in the lab. "Different timeline, different murder weapon, different. . . what?"

"The murders become more organized, probably better planned. Bug and pollen analysis suggests that Elizabeth Vargas was the first victim rather than the second." Stefani seemed at home in the lab, her commentary like one of those tour buses around the Capitol. "That puts Kate Sutherland second and Kathy Weiland third. . . ."

He wanted to lean heavily against something, but the three looks he was getting and the pace they were keeping prevented him from stopping the tour. One look at Bones followed by a look at Cam made him hold up his hands and ask, "Bottom line?"

Stefani practically glowed. "We have a new timeline, a new murder weapon, and something that might nail this son of a bitch." Her look took in Brennan whose expression hadn't changed. He pointedly looked at Cam whose glances toward Brennan were worrying him. "I can't believe no one caught this before."

He kept pace with the three of them as they descended from the platform and headed toward Brennan's office. Display boards lined the far wall which had the look of some weird serial killer war room—maps, photos, numbers and color coding that was highly organized and highly demanding of his attention. At half past alert and fading fast, he tried to look interested, but the scowl Brennan shot him told him he wasn't nearly as successful as he thought he was.

Everything looked extremely thorough down to the pins in the map of the country and the numbers next to each pin. Those corresponded to photos and mini-maps that accompanied crime scene photos for each victim.

"Dr. Hodgins determined that pollen samples suggest a starting point for each of the victims."

"The truck stops," he said as he sank down onto the arm of the couch. "Then they were driven off, probably, and dumped after the killer had his way with them someplace down the road. Hundred miles or so."

He was back in Mrs. Gold's class, all eyes on him because he couldn't come up with the correct answer at the end of an algebra problem.

"We already knew all this," he protested. "Except for the murder weapon. And the order of the murders. How does pollen help us?"

It had taken him a long, long time to truly understand the science that helped seal tight the evidence in their cases and he only understood it because he'd paid attention and the scientists around him were patient. He doubted Bones was in the mood to help him—she'd been quiet in the drive in—and Cam still wore a mask of amusement at his discomfort.

"The pollen suggests places where the murderer had been," said Stefani.

It was the sensible, direct explanation that he could handle.

"A crowbar fits the shape of the murder weapon," Brennan added. "Dr. Hodgins has pollen and metal particulates that were probably transferred from the weapon and the victim."

"No one picked these up before."

Even Cam was now giving him the look and he simply held up his hands in surrender. He gestured toward the boards. "How many of these women have the particulates?"

"Four." Stefani was practically jumping at the information. "But that's not what is so exciting."

"Your other three fit, pollen, murder weapon, the whole shebang," he supplied. "So we have 3 additional murders that fit the profile. Have you narrowed down the suspect pool?"

Stefani's look, smug and triumphant. "We've done one better."

While it was good progress on an old case, he couldn't suppress the yawn that grabbed hold. "Sorry," he said as he regained control, "what were you saying?" 

But even Stefani couldn't compete with the whirlwind that was Caroline Julian. The prosecutor charged into the office and he was helpless in the face of four women.

"Caroline, wha. . . ?"

"Cherie, your cops just confessed to setting the fire that killed Big Daddy Diamond and his boy wonder." She looked as self-satisfied as Stefani had. "The task force is having a field day with them. Finding all kinds of squiggly things under the rocks they're turning up."

"That's good news. . . ."

"But it's still mostly circumstantial on Darius Mull, Booth. You sure you've. . . you don't look so good, Booth."

Standing hurt just a little more than sitting and he had done the only thing he could and that was to lean heavily on the back of the couch.

"I had him out late last night," Stefani said. "We had drinks to celebrate closing the case. I have to take some of the blame."

He could feel Caroline and Cam's eyes on him. "Look, I'm fine." He stood up and pointedly did not look toward his partner, but his head seemed to explode anyway. "I was up early with Christine. Just go on."

Caroline sized him up. "Anyway you pretty it up, we still need more on Mull's killers."

Unsure that his head was up to it, Booth simply stared ahead.

Caroline was about to say something else, but a look toward Brennan, then back toward him was more than enough to silence that comment.

"You know," Stefani put in, "I can give you a hand with the Mull case. Tit for tat." She was all sunshine with Caroline, but Booth had a definite feeling that storm clouds were gathering. "I mean, I need someone like Agent Booth to help me sort through all this. The least I could do is help him with his murder investigation."

Caroline rarely looked stunned—she'd been a prosecutor too long for that—but she did arch her eyebrows and give him a look that bordered on surprise. He couldn't tell what she saw when she glanced toward Bones' desk, but he had a good idea. His own head was pounding furiously and he didn't want to chance looking left or right for fear it would fall right off.

"Those boys aren't going anywhere," Caroline finally said. "I'll just talk to you later when you've had more sleep."

He saw and heard—painfully—shoes departing: Caroline's sturdy mauve ones, Cam's ridiculously high heels and Stefani's sensible flats. He knew one pair of boots remained, attached to one forensic anthropologist who probably had something more to say to him, but his head had no room for more pain so he waved her off. "No. Don't say it. No. I don't want to hear it."

While her voice was low and almost soothing, her words were jagged in his head. "Would it matter if I said anything? You don't seem to be listening anyway."

oOo

And so it went. For two days he sifted through old case files, made phone calls, worked his cases from the Hoover then retreated home, mindful of the equal sharing rule he'd evoked. It wasn't that his heart wasn't in it—no. But distance made the pain less somehow; he felt less guilt for breaking off the engagement, less guilt for hurting her. He tried to make up with Bones but she only made her point again and then let it drop—it wasn't rational to keep playing the same note in the hopes of making it work within the Tutsi's dance composition.

Or something like that.

No. They had a truce of sorts. She dutifully reviewed all the evidence he had on Mull's death and he dutifully retraced his leads. Between them they found time to worry through the files on the truck stop murders—Brennan covering the science, he covering the suspects.

And at home? Silence grew as deep as the shadows.

oOo

**Author's note:** Please accept my thanks for the reviews and my appreciation for people who are following this story. I know case files don't garner as many reviews and followers as smut, romance and reworkings/interpretations of episodes/scenes and I just try to put together a good story that is true to the characters. If you are a reader who looks past those statistics in selecting your stories (I know people who only read completed stories or stories with X-number of reviews), then I do thank you.

If the pacing or story is off somehow, I do apologize. I originally wrote this behemoth as a "What if Brennan proposed and Booth said no," story. In the original, he was afraid to say yes for fear that the FBI would break them up and somehow, he would lose Brennan. In re-working this story for the new scenario, Christine is older; Booth finds that he is losing Brennan since he can't seem to be in the same room with her without feeling guilty. I'm not sure if Booth's guilt is as evident as it should be, but I'll try to be more cognizant of that as we go on. I also need to figure out how to pull in Aldo since he's now part of this story.

The original story was about 48,000+ words and was unfinished, although I knew what the last scene was. I know exactly what the last scene is for the new version. For those of you who like to know a bit about the process in the story, this note is for you.


	9. Paradise Lost

**Paradise Lost **

oOo

He pulled the plush dog back and made his growly noises, "Grrr-rowh grr-rowh-whirrr."

Christine laughed the open-mouth laugh that was as contagious as one of her smiles.

"Oooo's widdle Chrissy's daddy? Oooo's widdle Chrissy's daddy? Ooooo?"

These days he saw only glimpses of his daughter—mornings getting her ready for daycare, evenings reading a story until she drifted off to sleep. But this morning he slipped into her room while Bones was showering and found his daughter wide awake and ready for play.

"What does the widdle doggy say?"

Christine woofed, or "oof'd" the sound several times before she held onto the doggy with one hand while holding out her other and making a decidedly un-dog-like sound, "Mama!"

He didn't need to look up from the crib to know that Bones was standing in the doorway, her arms folded, her face mirroring her disapproval of his baby talk. He never quite approved of her adult talk with the baby so they were decidedly at an impasse on that one, but he counted it as one of the many oddities that they usually made work.

But this morning when he looked up, he saw, not the disapproving look, but something else.

It made him pause.

"Everything okay, Bones?" He pulled Christine up from the crib and began a small dance, Christine perched on his feet, her hands stretched to meet his as he shuffled toward the door.

Bones said nothing, only gave him a slight nod.

Accompanied by Christine's giggles, the shuffle dance took them closer to Bones who stood there at the doorway, her face betraying something he hadn't seen in a while.

Tenderness. It wasn't that Bones was a stranger to tenderness or he to seeing it in her. She could be a woman of unexpected tenderness, of great tenderness, in fact. Sometimes the emotion came out odd and misshapen somehow, but it always came from a good heart, a strong heart.

But they were so out of sync these days, he had to ask again.

"Yeah, it's fine," she said in that husky way she had when sometimes emotions caught and held her. "I'm fine." She straightened and he didn't see her try to transition back to her no-nonsense-emotions-are-not-rational mode. The look remained, deepened somehow. "My father won't be able to sit for Christine, so I asked Michelle to sit."

"You sure you're okay?"

She nodded. "You told me that you and your mother used to dance that way."

He picked up their daughter and swung her up into his arms. "Oooo's going for a ride? Oooo's going to see Michelle tomorrow night? Oooo's going to have a sleepover with her best buddy?"

"It's not a sleepover, Booth. Michelle is babysitting."

_That_ was the rational woman he knew.

"It's a widdle sleepover. A girls' night for pj's and bottles and fuzzy toys." Christine giggled. "Mommy and me are goin' to get all dressed up and go dancing and we're having our own sleepover."

He glanced up, waiting for her correction to his correction, but there was nothing, just that look of tenderness and something more.

"Bones?"

Framed in the doorway, her hair still damp, she no longer wore the wary look he'd earned from her. Instead, something had changed every so slightly and he dared to capture the moment.

Leaning in, he brushed her lips with his and finding no resistance, deepened the kiss. Somehow the uncertainty melted away and he sensed something shifting until Christine really did shift and leaned in as well to place a loud wet kiss on his cheek. He pulled back from Brennan, then had to juggle a squirming Christine who leaned toward her mother to mark her with an open mouth kiss on her face.

"Morning kisses," he said, trying to keep things light, trying to keep alive that small spark of tenderness. "Can't be anything but a great day."

oOo

Were it that simple. The same Fates which had given him Christopher Pelant to challenge his life seemed to rain down more annoyances with a morning visit from AD Hacker.

"Great work on rounding up those cops in the 7th," Hacker was saying as he strode into his office. "There should be some commendation in there for your team."

Booth looked up from the reports he'd been reading, the tenor of Hacker's remarks making him wary.

"We're still looking for Mull's killer," he reminded him.

"Yes," Hacker said as he stepped closer to the desk, "you still need to find the killer of that young man. Just wondering if you have too much on your plate."

_That_ made him really look at Hacker. The public persona had given way to another tinged with concern.

"Is there pressure from somewhere?"

Hacker gave him an oily smile and pressed a finger to the London bobby's head on his desk as if to let the head-on-a-spring answer the question.

"There's some concern that you're over-extended. Your team's over-extended." Hacker toyed with the lid of the candy jar on his desk. "Temperance has mostly been relegated to the lab on this one. Is that something the two of you worked out?"

Booth straightened and tried to read the man. Mostly Hacker breezed in and out of his office on those rare occasions when he was getting heat on one of his cases. But the latest headlines announcing the bust of bad cops should have been a public relations boon for the bureau.

"I'm still looking for Pelant," he admitted. "Pelant is laying low right now."

Hacker waved a hand dismissively. "He keeps a finger on the pulse of his next victims. Meanwhile we bury two fine agents and put another in an office for the rest of his career. He'll turn up when he's ready to spread murder and mayhem."

He _had_ been looking for the bastard, _hadn't really quit looking for him_ anymore than he'd stopped looking for Darius Mull's killer just because he had speared bigger fish. But he understood all too well the disconnect between words and actions.

"It's personal, boss."

Hacker only narrowed his eyes at him and gave him a look he couldn't quite read. Then one side of his mouth curved upward and he gave the bobby another flick of his finger.

"Glad to hear that you haven't given up on that maniac." He turned to go and then swiveled his head back toward him.

"I'll see you this afternoon when we get the full report from your team on Stefani's serial case."

He left, but some part of him remained in the room like an oil slick on water.

oOo

Today's second little exercise in torture took them back to the youth center. Sweets looked like a baby next to the hardened expressions on the faces of some of the boys there, barely 15 or 16. One boy, with a gruesome scar that seemed to cut across his face in a diagonal swoosh, sat across from them his hands as impatient as his legs which pumped up and down nervously.

"We're simply looking for anyone who wanted Darius Mull dead."

"He go for the low dudes," Kareem tapped his finger against the photo on the table. "Don't nobody care 'bout dem."

"So Mull would actively try to help the gang members, the newbies as it were, to leave the life?"

Sweets had leaned back in his chair and was this close to taking it to the back legs like he'd seen so many of the boys do at the center.

"That's what I say, man."

"He have any enemies?"

"Naw, man. E'body his friend." Scarface looked disgustedly at Sweets.

"We get it," Booth said. "Gang leaders didn't care as long as he didn't go after their earners. Low level soldiers, no big deal. Dime a dozen."

"You serve?"

"He was a Ranger and a former sniper." Sweets was a bit too enthusiastic. "Holds marksmanship records with the Bureau and the Army."

Scarface gave him the once over again, but Booth felt the thread leading to Mull's killer slipping through his fingers.

"You see anyone with Mull? Someone out of the ordinary?"

Kareem looked hesitant then glanced back at Mull's picture. "He talkin' to a chick, you know what I mean? Oooooh, she one fine, you know what I mean?"

"Why didn't you say something before?" Sweets asked.

"Didn't think it important." The kid looked wary.

"Can you describe her?"

To Sweets' question, the young man added a description that could have been any woman who happened to be blonde. Even Stefani.

"If I brought you to see an artist at the FBI, could you describe her well enough for a sketch?"

He'd preached it over the years, anyone who had contact with the victim in his last few days could be important. Scarface dropped his cool demeanor. "I ain't going down there. You can't take me down as a maternal witness. . . ."

"Material," Booth corrected.

"W'ever, man. I ain't goin'."

Scarface looked as if he were seconds from bolting when Booth offered a compromise.

He dialed Angela's number and was grateful she picked up on the second ring. After explaining the situation, he set his phone on the table. "Tell her what you saw and she'll draw it."

Kareem hesitated only slightly, especially after seeing Angela. Within fifteen, twenty minutes, they had a sketch of a young woman sporting several earrings in her right ear and a small scar just above her left eye.

"Definitely not Stefani," Sweets said as the drawing passed Kareem's inspection.

"She hang around here? Booth asked.

Kareem gave him a long, slow shake of his head.

"Man, if she did, don' ya think I'd be here more?"

oOo

Only the mummy peeking over the panels rolled into Brennan's office suggested the space was anything but a crime solver's war room. Stefani had engineered some kind of coup taking over Brennan's space and turning it into a murderer's horror show. Each of the panels told a story of a life lived much-too-briefly. Each person pictured practically screamed to be put to rest.

"Hacker rescheduled," Stefani announced as she breezed into the office. "Something about indictments for local police officers. Way to steal my thunder, Booth."

She smiled slightly and he felt a need to almost step back from her. Luckily she was closely trailed by Cam and Bones.

"Seeley," Cam said, "I thought Assistant Director Hacker had called you."

"Andrew said that he was standing in for you in court." Brennan pointed out, her expression suggesting she wanted to say more.

"I can still take you through our findings," Stefani said, eager for an audience. "I an't say enough about the insights your team has provided."

He'd read the reports, knew the math of the investigation wasn't quite adding up to everything Stefani wanted, but he gave a curt nod.

"Just as I expected," Stefani was diving full into her explanation, "the eighth victim should be connected with other murders. . . ."

Her phone chirped and she excused herself. Booth took the opportunity to draw Brennan to the side.

"I need to track down a woman seen talking to Darius Mull a day or two before he died," he said.

"Let me get my bag," Brennan offered.

He held up his hand, rolling the poker chip between his fingers. "No. It might be a late night," he explained. "We'd need a sitter and you dad's in the wind." He shook his head. "There's no reason why both of us should miss time with Christine."

Parenthood meant juggling responsibilities for Christine, and she acquiesced easily. "You should call her before her bedtime. That way she can talk. . . ."

"I'm sorry," Stefani interrupted, stepping so close he could smell her perfume, "but I just have to talk to a witness on the Lass case and the marshalls have finally brought him in."

Without waiting for a response, Agent Maci Stefani left the office with a kind of whoosh that left them all a bit speechless.

"What do I need to know?" Booth asked finally, nodding toward the panels.

It was Cam who supplied an answer. "She wants your job."

oOo

_To hell with his job_, he thought as he ended the call and shut down his phone, Christine's words still echoing in his head, Bones' voice calling him home. They were still unsteady together, but she was trying, working at their relationship. _Working in the dark_, he thought ruefully.

So was he, despite the summer light. He sat in the SUV, tapping out his impatience on the steering wheel. The summer night stretched out before him and he tried to focus on one problem at a time: the blonde.

Angela's sketch hadn't turned up anything initially in the databases so he'd resorted to canvassing the area until a shop owner offered up a street name and another pointed him in the direction of an old pet store that had become a squatter's paradise for the street kids. A call to Nelsan D gave him a more complete map of other places to look, but with the high number of foreclosed homes in the area adding to the mix and with the mild weather, he had far too many possibilities of places to look.

Another call into Angela had earned him a wider search through The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children database and another name, a very different look and another life: Jennifer Reade.

Tucking the phone in his pocket, he climbed from the vehicle. He could have turned her description over to the local police, but he didn't quite trust the 7th had a clean house. Shutting his car door, he pocketed his keys and headed up the street.

It'd be faster with more eyes on the street, but Nelsan D had promised his help by recruiting a few of the regulars at the youth center. Just like with Pelant, this search needed patience.

And a bit of luck.

One by one he hit the lowlights of the 7th district—abandoned shops and viaducts, back alleys and vacant lots. He avoided the street corners kept under surveillance by cameras and monitored by the police because Jennifer would bypass those places. He jumped fences and broke into a cardboard village, showed Jennifer's photo to two dozen or more street kids, passed out half as many cards, but came up empty.

And tired.

A bar with a pool table beckoned, practically calling his name, but he fished out the poker chip in his pocket and remembered he had other, harder gambles to make.

Standing under a street light that was just beginning to be effective against the growing gloom, he checked his watch and tried not to think of home. Bones was probably tucked into a book, Christine was certainly long into dreamland and he was miles from them. And sometimes in the same room these days he felt disconnected from them. That morning had been a pleasant surprise as had been Brennan's offer to come with him that afternoon. But both of them didn't have to be combing the streets for a blonde who might or might not have anything to do with Darius Mull's death.

"Hey man, you got a light?"

A trio of young men eyed him. The middle one, barely older than Justin Bieber and holding out a Swisher, held steady, but the one to his left was twitchy and looking over his shoulder. He recognized them from the youth center.

"Sure." Booth reached into his pocket and pulled out his ID and Angela's sketch.

One look at the drawing produced a "Shit" and the one on the left got real still. Booth flicked open the lighter and held it out. "Just need to ask about this girl." He shook the picture of Reade. "Have you seen her around here? I need to talk to her."

Lefty looked harder at the photo than the others. "She 'round."

"Can you tell me where?"

The other two tried to pull him away, but Lefty stood staring at the photo. "C'mon, man, you don' know nuttin'."

"Darius Mull."

The name earned him a momentary pause as Swisher pulled at his ear.

"You heard about the cops going down?" Booth asked, playing his ace. "If she's on the street and she knows something, how safe do you think it is for her?"

He kept his eyes on Lefty, but could see Swisher and the other one trying to separate and go around him. "She doesn't deserve what happened to Darius. Drugged. Tortured. Beaten. Shot." He emphasized each word, stepping closer to Lefty. "She knows something and the only way she's going to be safe is if I can bring her in."

Lefty looked like he might dissolve into his own fear, but Booth refused to back down. "She talked to Mull a couple of days before he was killed. I need to talk to her. I need to bring her in."

Swisher was trying to pull him free, but Booth put his body between them. "If you can't tell me where she is, can you get a message to her?"

Lefty was looking nervously at his buddies and eyeing the top of his shoes. He mumbled something.

"What?" Booth leaned in.

This time he heard what the kid mumbled.

oOo

It had taken switching on his phone and Googling the name twice before he found the spot. Anchoring a row of tired-looking shops, this was one of a hundred neighborhood spots with neon in its window to announce a place to escape the heat on the streets.

At least it was appropriately named, he thought.

The door groaned behind him. Inside, a shock of cool air met him. The room itself was long and narrow, with a worn wooden bar leading the eye to the back where a group of men were sitting at the tables, necks angled, watching the latest baseball debacle to a muted TV.

The vent above him doused him with the scent of stale beer and spent hopes.

A roar came up in the back and he heard someone curse as he rounded a barstool. Someone had struck lights along the walls, trying to add some color to the murky tones within. Liquors signs and old photos made up the rest of the décor.

Booth leaned on the bar and spoke to the back of the man behind the bar. "You the owner?"

The man turned and Booth recognized the man immediately.

"Master Sergeant."

"Father Aldo."


	10. Chasing

**Chasing**

oOo

"FBI." Father Aldo's eyebrows arched at the three letters. "I'm impressed."

Booth slid his ID back into his pocket and produced Angela's sketch. "I was told you might have seen her."

Aldo looked at him. "No, it's good to see you? How long has it been? Or do all you FBI guys walk around looking like someone shot your dog?"

Booth hesitated, shook his head, then held out his hand. "It's good to see you Father."

"Bartender, FBI Agent Booth," Aldo corrected him. "Bartender. A different calling altogether. Moved by a different kind of spirit."

Booth eyed the man. His hair was longer than it had been in the Army, his demeanor just as disarming in its directness. "I need to get to this girl. It could save her life."

Aldo shifted his eyes from Booth to the paper. It didn't take but a minute, but it seemed like an eternity.

"Breezy." He shrugged. "That's what they call her. She comes by now and then looking to make some honest money."

"How?"

Aldo tilted his head back and frowned. "Recycling."

"Recycling?"

"I give her empty bottles to be recycled with an artist a few blocks away. She turns beer bottles into art."

"Have you seen her lately?"

Aldo gave him a long assessing look, the same kind of look Booth had earned his days as a Ranger. Aldo didn't even look again at the photo. "She came in here the other day, said she needed some money." His eyebrows shot up again. "What I gave her wouldn't get her very far. She wasn't using as far as I could tell."

Booth took the photo and pocketed it. "Any idea where she might go?"

"There's a youth center. . . ."

Booth interrupted him. "That's poison right now. One of the directors of the center was killed. She might know something about it."

He got the same measured response Aldo gave him during his time in the Rangers. "My guess is that she'd want to go somewhere no one else knew of. The glass blower was something between us. No one else knew she went there." He shrugged. "But I'm not certain she's there."

Booth said nothing. Years ago he had put his very soul into this man's hands and now the life of a young girl. Aldo pulled out a coaster and produced a pen. "Callie's a retired school teacher. Has a soft spot for the lost ones. She seemed to like Breezy."

"Jennifer," Booth corrected. He slipped his card on the bar.

"Jennifer," Aldo accepted. He handed him the paper coaster. "I hope you find her."

Booth nodded and headed toward the door.

"Hey, Master Sergeant?" Aldo called out. "You know where I am now. Stop by some time when you aren't working."

oOo

He crawled into bed, morning threatening between the curtains in their bedroom. No matter how hard he tried, exhaustion made him clumsy and his movements woke Brennan.

"What time is it?"

"Too early," he said past the arm shielding his eyes. "I need a couple hours sleep."

Whatever Bones said to him was lost as sleep overtook him. When he did awake, Army training and a catnap in the SUV aside, the clock had already crawled past 8. He followed its slow movements from bed to his jogging clothes and then out the door only pausing long enough to read the note Bones had left him.

The day promised to be warm and sunny, and after stretching out the knots from his abbreviated sleep, he took off at a slow pace down the street.

Jennifer Reade was no where to be found. Callie McIntire hadn't been home and the hour had been far too late to go knocking on the doors of the neighbors. He'd left messages for agents to locate her and bring her in.

His work to find Pelant hadn't been nearly as productive.

Running down the street trying to clear his head, he realized in so many ways he was just running in place.

oOo

"You planning on becoming a maitre'd, cher?"

He hung up the black suit he'd wear that night on the coat rack and turned toward Caroline Julian who had already planted herself in his. Several folders were open on her lap and she was fingering the edge of one of them impatiently.

"Bones has a. . . ."

"Then you just give that woman whatever she wants," Caroline ordered. "She's the only reason that serial case Agent Stefani re-opened is going anywhere."

He didn't want to remind Caroline that it had been Stefani who had insisted on the case seeing new light. "Why are you here?"

"You aren't answering your phone," she complained.

"Oh," he muttered as he retrieved the phone from his coat and switched it on.

Her eyebrows shot up as he positioned himself behind his desk. "The Department of Justice likes that you got some bad cops off the streets, cher, but don't you think we could tie one of them to Darius Mull's murder?"

He held back a sigh. "The cops had every reason to want him dead. He had evidence on them, probably used that to blackmail them." Booth pulled a piece of paper from his pile. "Mull's bank records indicate he wasn't getting rich on doing social work. But he did receive a nice bonus the day he died."

Caroline's highbrows hit a new height when she perused the paper he handed her. "Messed with his plans for a trip to Europe," she mused. "Dying like that." She handed the paper back. "Who do we like for this? The runaway?"

"No. One of the cops put the money in his account to make it look like he was dealing with the gangs. Or that he was doing something crooked. But she didn't do it."

"Then why are we looking for this Jennifer Reade?"

"She's probably the one who held onto the cell phone," Booth said as he filed the paper with the other documents. "Maybe even shot the video of his torture. She's running because she's afraid of what the cops will do to her when they find her. She knows something."

Caroline huffed. "You'd think she'd be a better photographer and give us faces in that video." He felt the heat of her look. "You need to find that girl before a friend of those cops finds her."

oOo

Sitting at the computer or making phone calls, it was the job. Phone calls and questions, computer searches and reports. And knocking on doors. And it all took time even though he had a sense that they were running out of time.

Shaw pulled nothing from Callie McIntire's credit card receipts and the other agents he sent out to canvass her neighbors turned up just as much.

"I can't find Callie McIntire," he said as he entered Angela's office. "She hasn't used a credit card for the past week."

"I can't find her, but you can."

"I'll get on that right away," Angela said as she continued to do exactly what she had been doing when he walked in— organizing something on her computer screen.

"Is this a timeline for Stefani's investigation?"

The faces and dates danced across the screen, taking their place in the line with breakneck speed.

"I can check her phone records," Angela said as the screen shifted again.

"We've done that." The image of the dead women remained with him. "She hasn't used her phone for over a week."

Angela paused and turned toward him. "I need something, Booth. Even Stefani doesn't expect me to pull things out of thin air."

"Art shows," he pronounced. "She does art shows. She works with glass."

Angela smiled and within milliseconds, she was bringing up a list. "Juried or open?"

He shrugged and eyed her.

"High end or plastic canvas Kleenex boxes?"

"This is your thing."

She shrugged and her fingers danced along the tablet. The list she had begun grew longer.

"Stefani's pretty attractive."

It was said with that slightly teasing, slightly provocative way that Angela had and he ignored her.

"What kind of glasswork does she do?"

He just looked at her.

"Chihuly, Tiffany?"

He shrugged.

Hodgins joined them and he began to feel time slipping from him.

"It would help to know what kind of art she does with glass. There's neon, lampworking, stained glass, fused glass, glass blowing. . . ."

"She recycles beer bottles."

"Probably eliminates glass blowing, lampworking or fusing since the coefficient of expansion. . . ."

Booth turned toward Hodgins. "I don't need squinty talk. I just need squinty action."

"It would help to narrow down the kind of artwork she does," Angela reminded him. "Beer bottles could mean mosaics. . . ."

"Or she could be cutting them up for glassware," Hodgins added. "Or wind chimes like we saw at that art show in Westmont."

He stared at the computer screen, the words jockeying for position as his patience faded.

"Jennifer Reade may be with her and she might have information about Darius Mull's murder."

He said the words evenly, but they seemed to have an effect.

Angela's list began to thin out.

"That's good, Ange," Hodgins piped in. "Maybe we can narrow it down geographically."

"East of the Mississippi?"

The list divided, then stabilized and a map popped up on the right side of the screen complete with tags to mark each fair's location.

"I can get you a list of contact numbers," Angela offered. "Most of these don't list individual artists."

"Can you email Shaw?"

A slight pause, then, "She's got it."

He thanked her, then headed toward his second destination.

The office still seemed like a house of horrors, crime scene photos littering the panels with glaring honesty. But Brennan, oblivious to their menace, was seated at her desk, laptop open examining a different kind of horror.

"I missed you this morning."

She looked up. "I was just going over Darius Mull's injuries. The person who did this had to have been someone with upper body strength. Yet, they used insulin to subdue him." She smiled slightly, almost as if embarrassed. "You came in so late last night I thought you needed sleep."

He bent down to kiss her. "Thank you."

"Did you remember. . . ?"

He cut her off. "I got your note. Suit's in my office." He smiled, trying to put her at ease. "I've got Shaw looking for Callie McIntyre." At her look of confusion he explained the connection. "The cops aren't talking and I'm running out of possibilities. The cops did this."

He got that look, the one that told him what she thought of hunches, but rather than a scolding, rather than a reminder of how he couldn't take that into court, he got what Temperance Brennan could sometimes do better than anyone—support.

"You'll catch them, Booth. You will."

But he shot that to hell.

oOo

**A/N: Consider Thursday in this neck of the frozen Midwest a heat wave—20 degrees rather than the negative temps. I'm ready for spring. **


End file.
